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June 28, 2022
Jews and Christians Learning to Relate: Susan Michael's Story
This episode is the first of several highlighting the stories of pioneers in the field of Jewish Christian relations so we can learn from their experiences and advice. Today you will hear how Susan Michael became a pioneer in Evangelical-Jewish relations through her work in Washington DC. She will share some of the mistakes she made and several key lessons she learned along the way.
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Jews and Christians Learning to Relate: Susan Michael's Story (Out of Zion Episode #122)
Transcript
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Well, if you've tuned in to listening to me today, it's because you're interested
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in developing a relationship between Jews and Christians.
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But you do not learn how to conduct Jewish-Christian relations by reading a book, even though I'm
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going to recommend the best book at the end of today.
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You learn it by engaging in the relationship.
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So we're going to begin today hearing from some people and pioneers that have been involved
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in this relationship for many years.
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Today we're going to start with hearing my story, so please stay tuned.
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Welcome to the Israel Answers series, Connecting Israel, the Bible, and You.
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Join Susan Michael as she explores timely issues and current events from a scriptural perspective
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to equip the Christian world with a balance and biblical response.
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Be sure to subscribe for future episodes, which will ignite your faith and bring the Bible
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to life in your everyday world.
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Now, let's join Susan with your Israel Answers.
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Well I'm often asked how I got started in the ministry of the International Christian
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Embassy Jerusalem and in the work of Christians and Jews working together in support of Israel.
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And I will say that there is just really nothing in my background or my upbringing that pointed
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towards this or that prepared me for it.
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There's only one thing that I can remember from my childhood that would in some way explain.
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And that was the summer of when I was sixteen going on seventeen and I gave my life to the
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Lord.
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I said these words, Lord I'll go wherever you want me to go and I'll do whatever you
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want me to do.
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Well I never expected that he wanted me to do anything outside of my hometown or my home
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state, much less outside of my country.
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But within two years I was on an airplane to Israel for a summer study program and that
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summer changed my life and it changed the trajectory for my life.
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So once I finished my college degree in biblical studies I returned to Israel.
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It was now the summer of 1980 to begin a master's degree at the same school I had studied that
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summer.
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I wanted more of that life-changing experience.
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I wanted to learn more.
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And so it just so happens that one month after I arrived in Jerusalem that the very first
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Christian celebration of the Fishtabranacals was being held.
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And at that celebration they announced that they were starting the International Christian
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Embassy Jerusalem.
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The director of my school became the founding chairman of the board, a fellow student at
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the school became the financial director.
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I was there the day the ICEJ opened their doors and I was in and out of there every week as
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a member of the family.
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I wasn't on staff because I was a full-time student but I was certainly a part of the
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staff family.
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I met with them regularly to pray and in their devotions and volunteered there.
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So when I finished my master's degree I moved to Washington D.C. on behalf of this new ICEJ
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organization because they wanted their head office for the United States to be in D.C.
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And it took us a few years before it was.
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However, I lived in Washington D.C. 29 years and there I worked very, very closely with
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the Israeli Embassy in helping them develop relations with the Christians in America.
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And I also worked very closely with a number of major Jewish organizations there in D.C.
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And that's how I got involved in actually not just supporting Israel but in working with
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the Jewish community here in the United States.
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Now in Israel I saw the impact of the ICEJ on the relationship because I knew exactly
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what it was like living there in the early 80s.
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You regularly met skepticism.
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You regularly met a little bit of a critical why are you here attitude.
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And 10 years later though I showed up at the FISA tabernacles and I remember being struck
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by the complete change of attitude.
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And people in the coffee shop or on the street, oh are you here for the FISA tabernacles?
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And I was like, well yes I am here for the FISA tabernacles.
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Oh, welcome.
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They were so happy.
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Why?
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Well because 10, 12 years now the ICEJ had been bringing thousands of Christians into
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Jerusalem every fall for this Jewish feast in Hebron's called Sukkot.
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We call it the FISA tabernacles in English.
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And a part of that feast is what's called the Jerusalem march.
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And thousands of Christians would join this march marching through the streets of Jerusalem,
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dressed in national colors and national costumes and carrying banners from their countries,
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letting the Jewish people know that they prayed for them, that they blessed them, and that
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they loved Israel.
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So the ICEJ and particularly the FISA tabernacles had had a tremendous impact on the people
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of Israel and on Jewish-Christian relations.
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So much so that after 20, 25 years of our existence and our consistency and always being
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there and always demonstrating our friendship, we were approached by the Jerusalem Post.
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They wanted to start a Christian edition of their magazine and we partnered with them
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and eventually that magazine went all online.
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But also, around a few years later, we were approached by Yad Vashem.
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And we knew that this was the moment in history that we had to stand up to the plate.
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We had to help Yad Vashem.
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Yad Vashem is the Holocaust Memorial and Remembrance Center in Jerusalem.
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It's a real, very sacred institution of the Israeli government to commemorate the six
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million that died in the Holocaust.
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And many of the founders of Yad Vashem, the directors, the Holocaust survivors that support
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Yad Vashem all understand the role that Christian anti-Semitism played in preparing the way
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for the Holocaust.
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And so when they came to us and said, we are now ready to engage the Christian world, will
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you help us?
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We knew that we had to.
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And so our partnership with Yad Vashem still continues today.
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We call it the Christian Friends of Yad Vashem.
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But that just shows how deep the relationship has been developed.
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And I will tell you, it wasn't easy and they had to learn to trust and we had to learn
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to work together in that sacred institution.
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So these are some of the signs, though, that Jewish Christian relations in Israel has been
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greatly impacted by Christian support of Israel and particularly the pioneering work of the
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ICEJ.
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Now in the United States, it's a slightly slower development because back in the 90s,
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we organized a series of events all across the United States every single year.
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And we would often reach out to the local Jewish community.
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We would invite them to come one evening to a special program.
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We made sure that it would be comfortable for a mixed audience.
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We did everything that we could to accommodate them, but they would not come.
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And the Israeli diplomats from the Israeli embassy in D.C., they would come, they would
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speak at our events.
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They were so frustrated that the local Jewish community did not trust us because the Israeli
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diplomats understood the importance of the Christian support of Israel.
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And they had been working with us in Israel.
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And so the Jewish community, though, in America was just very protective of themselves and
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were afraid.
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Well, I watched it all change overnight in the year 2000.
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In 2000, it was the second Intifada in Israel.
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And you may remember it as a wave of suicide bus bombings in Israel.
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It was so traumatic.
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These terrorists would put on explosive belts.
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They would get on a city bus in the middle of the busiest time of the day surrounded
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by children and women and innocent civilians.
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And they would blow themselves up.
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Tourism came to a screeching halt.
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It was a very dangerous time in Israel.
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You never knew where the next bombing would take place.
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Well, there's no tours.
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There's no tourists in Israel.
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But here comes the FISA tabernacles.
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And what happens?
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We still had a full haul at the convention center.
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Several thousand Christians came from all over the world.
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And we heard stories.
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Some of them would go downtown and ride a city bus in solidarity with the Jewish people.
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Now this had tremendous impact.
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And I remember coming back from the feast, I was in Washington, D.C. in a meeting and
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I heard two Jewish people talking.
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And one said to the other, did you hear about the thousands of Christians that came to Jerusalem
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for the FISA tabernacles?
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And the other one said, yes, maybe they really are our friends.
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And the other one said, maybe we should be working with them.
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And from that point, I began to be invited to speak to the boards of directors of various
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Jewish organizations there in D.C. to travel and speak to their chapter leaders in other
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cities.
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I spoke in synagogues.
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I spoke in Jewish conferences.
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I gave the same talk over and over and over because they wanted to know who are evangelical
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Christians, how many are there, what do you believe, why do you support Israel, and should
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we work with you?
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I am very happy to say that several of those organizations made the official decision to
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work with the Christian community.
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Others said, well, we're just, well, not going to oppose it if any of our chapters went to.
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They're free to.
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And out of this budded relationship in the United States, it is astounding.
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I mean, I was even a keynote speaker at a conference of rabbis and pastors and Christian
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leaders.
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And out of that conference, 10 years ago started a Rabbi pastor Torah story, Torah Study Meeting
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that is still going on today.
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So the relationship has come a long way.
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And what it took was Christians proving their genuine and sincere friendship and that they
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were committed, they were dedicated.
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We were going to be here for the long haul.
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Now I want to share with you four pieces of advice, whether you're Jewish or you're
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Christian and you want to get involved in this relationship.
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And my four pieces of advice are based on mistakes that I made.
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I can give you examples of things that I did that I learned the most from.
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So first is we must understand that this has to be a sincere relationship.
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No hidden agendas, no strings attached.
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We must be sincere and transparent or it will not work.
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Now I want to, I'll tell you a story.
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I will always remember this.
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I mean, Washington, DC, it's somewhere around 2000, 2001.
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The relationship is still very, very new in the United States.
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And we came up with the idea of holding an all day conference in a local church, talking
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about Christian anti-Semitism history, and then that evening to hold a repentance service
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in a local synagogue.
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And so I approached the largest reform synagogue in DC because its founding rabbi had been
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a pioneer in evangelical Jewish relations and I knew him.
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And he told me, he said, look, I no longer have any authority.
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I'm retired.
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I don't have a position or place of authority, but I will certainly let them know that I
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recommend they do this.
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I said, okay.
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So he did, and then I reached out to the head rabbi and he said, well, let me talk to my
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border rabbis and get back to you.
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Took a while, but he called me back.
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He said, listen, I raised the subject with my border rabbis and they just had some concerns
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and they had some questions and these are the kinds of things they were asking.
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And so he'd ask a question and I would respond and I'd give him the answer.
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And he said, okay, well, they also wanted to know this.
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And so I gave him the answer.
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After about the third question and me responding, he said, you know, would you come and meet
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with the border rabbis and allow them to ask these questions and for you to address them?
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I said, sure, no problem.
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So I hang up the phone and then all of a sudden I'm like, the border rabbis, I'm going to
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go before a border rabbis.
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Here I am, I'm all the probably 40 years old young woman.
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What do I know?
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I don't even know what a border rabbis is.
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And it was a little intimidating, but I've always been one to go where angels fear to
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tread and so I'm going to do it.
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And the morning before the meeting, I opened my Bible and the thing just fell open to Proverbs
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31, of course, about the woman of valor.
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And in verse 26, this verse just jumped off the page and hit me in the heart and I knew
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that this was my confirmation, my direction.
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And this is what verse 26 says, she opens her mouth with wisdom and on her tongue is
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the law of kindness.
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Now I read this and I was astounded.
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You understand rabbis specialize in the law.
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They study the law and every interpretation of the law.
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That's their specialty.
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And here the Lord is telling me to go with the law of kindness on my tongue.
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Well I took a big deep sigh of relief.
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I can do that.
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I can be a sincere and kind friend.
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And that's what I did.
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I went there, I met with them, I answered their questions.
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They approved it on the spot and we later were able to hold that service of repentance.
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What a lesson that was for me and I hope you'll take it to heart as well.
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Now a second lesson here that I have for Christians is that we must understand that the Jewish
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people are actually told to be afraid of evangelical Christians.
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They have been told a lot of negative things about us.
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We have been portrayed as only being after their soul that we just want to convert them
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away from Judaism that they will no longer be Jewish and to make them Christian.
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And so we have to give them a level of comfort that actually we are a sincere friend.
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But I'll tell you an interesting story about this.
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So at this time, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004, I'm speaking to all these Jewish groups and I'm
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invited to come to Dallas, Texas to speak to a chapter of one of the major national
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Jewish organizations.
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And so, you know, I'm very busy.
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I give this talk over and over and over.
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So I didn't give it a lot of thought.
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I grabbed my notebook with my notes.
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I'm on the plane to Dallas and all of a sudden I think, wait a minute.
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This Jewish community lives in the heart of the Bible Belt.
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They're surrounded by evangelical churches.
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They know everything I'm about to tell them.
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This talk is not going to fly.
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This is not the right talk to give in Dallas.
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And I started to panic.
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I thought I should have thought about this earlier.
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I should have spent more time preparing.
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And I was really quite worried about it.
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So the director of the chapter picked me up at the airport.
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She took me to dinner before the meeting.
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And so over dinner, I very gently said, so you work closely with the evangelical Christians
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here in Dallas?
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And she said, oh, no, we're scared to death of them.
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I thought, well, there we go.
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It's the same talk tonight.
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And it astounded me, but it showed me that the smaller the Jewish community throughout
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the South, throughout the Christian areas, they are very insular and they're very protective
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and they are actually afraid.
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Now a lot of that has changed in the last 20 years, but it still exists.
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It's still there.
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And you need to understand that.
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Thirdly, is that you Christians need to learn the history of anti-Semitism because most
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of it is the history of Christian anti-Semitism.
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And the Jewish people all know this history.
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And if you don't know it, you don't know the things that they're very sensitive about.
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You don't know those red flag words that you shouldn't use because it means one thing to
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them.
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Now it may mean something different to you, but you need to know what are the hot button
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items?
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What do you need to avoid or to better explain because of the history?
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Now the story I have to tell you about this happened way back in 1980.
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I had just landed in Israel, right off the airplane, Ben-Gurion Airport, and I catch
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a shared taxi up to Jerusalem to my school.
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And in the shared taxi with me is another passenger who happens to be a young college-aged guy
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like me from New York, probably.
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Orthodox Jewish man on his way to study in Jerusalem also.
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So we strike up a conversation and he's very curious, you know, why am I there?
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Where am I studying?
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What am I studying?
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And all of this.
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And then he asks this question, well, what do you want to do after you finish your studies?
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And I said, I think I want to be a missionary.
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Whoa!
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Missionary, that to him means that I am after his soul and I am there to convert the Jews.
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And he clammed up, didn't say another word, I think he was scared to death.
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Now what did I mean by missionary?
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Well, I didn't mean to be an evangelist.
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I meant to be an international Christian worker, so like, you know, I was a musician,
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so I might go and volunteer in a church somewhere in their music department or teach Sunday
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school at a church in a third world country, or maybe I'd work in an orphanage.
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Something like that.
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I was like an administrative person and I was musical and I had a, you know, like to
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help.
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That was my gifting.
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And that's what I meant by the word.
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A lot of our churches use the word missionary in kind of a broad way.
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Not all mission's work of a church is evangelism.
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It can include humanitarian aid.
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And so we use the word in a broad term and I was using it in a very broad term.
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Well, I learned my lesson.
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I've often thought about that poor young man and how I must have scared him.
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Now the last lesson I want to share is for the Jewish people.
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And that is to understand that evangelical Christians really do have good intentions.
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It's just that we're not really skilled or taught about interfaith dialogue.
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We want to work with you, but we really are inexperienced at it.
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So when we make a mistake, use it as a teaching moment and help us learn from it.
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I think you'll find that we are so eager to learn from our mistakes.
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We have a good heart and we have good intentions.
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So now my closing story today about this point is back in 1996, we were celebrating the 3000
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year anniversary of the city of Jerusalem being made the capital by King David.
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So we did a series of events all around the world called Jerusalem 3000.
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And all around the world we had invited the Jewish community to our events and to celebrate
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with us.
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So the date I was given for when the team would be in the United States was in June.
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And so we began, we rented a huge hall in Washington, DC.
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It held 4000 people and we did a lot of promotion.
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And we reached out to all the churches through radio and everything.
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We also reached out to the Jewish community and invited them to come celebrate with us.
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And one of the things that we did is that I wrote a letter to all the rabbis in the
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DC area letting them know what we were doing and that we were inviting them and their congregation
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to attend.
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And I had a couple of Jewish leaders that were working with me on the event and I was
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talking to them about it.
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They helped me get the list of rabbis.
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I was getting advice.
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But nevertheless, I made a big mistake.
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But what was the mistake?
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I didn't realize that the two main Jewish leaders giving me advice were both from the
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reform movement.
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And that means that they're not very legalistic in ways that the conservative and the Orthodox
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and the ultra-Orthodox were.
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So the date I was working on in June was the longest day of the year.
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It was a Saturday night and it was the longest Saturday in the whole year.
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And our event was starting at 7.30 p.m.
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Well, for the religious Jewish community, Shabbat didn't end until after 8.30 that night.
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And so I got a phone call from the head of the board of rabbis in Washington, DC to let
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me know that my letter and my invitation were offensive because I was asking them to break
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Shabbat.
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I was devastated, absolutely devastated.
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Once again, at this time, I'm not even 40 by then.
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I mean, I'm a young woman.
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I'm just trying to carry out this event.
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And I was really devastated.
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So I asked the rabbi, I said, what should I do?
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Should I write a letter of apology?
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And if I do, would you be willing to read the letter before I send it to make sure that
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it's okay?
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And when I asked that, it melted his heart.
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He realized she is so sincere.
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This was a sincere mistake.
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There was nothing behind this.
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There was no animus.
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And he said, I would be happy to review your letter.
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So I wrote the most sincere letter I could.
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I sent it to him.
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He said, it's great.
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It's beautiful.
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Send it.
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And I sent a letter of apology to all the rabbis in DC.
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I've never made that mistake again, and I never will.
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And this is my point.
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We all make mistakes, but we learn the most from our mistakes.
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So please, let's use those moments as a teaching moment with each other so that Jews and Christians
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can learn how better to relate to each other and how better to work together.
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So I hope you've learned a little something from my mistakes.
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And you've gotten a few chuckles out of my stories.
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And I hope that you'll begin to engage in this amazing opportunity that we have in our
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generation for Jews and Christians to learn to relate.
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Now if you do want to read a little something, I want to recommend to you the book, A Father
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Abraham by Dr. Marvin Wilson.
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We spoke with Dr. Wilson last week.
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Really, I could not recommend his book more.
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It's going to teach you about the history of Jewish-Christian relations, about the Jewish
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roots of the Christian faith.
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It's a textbook.
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You'll want to get it.
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So in today's show notes, we give you the link.
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All right, that does it for today.
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We'll be back next week with another story and lessons learned from a pioneer in Jewish-Christian
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relations.
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I'll see you back here then, and until then, God bless.
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We hope you have enjoyed this episode of Out of Zion with Susan Michael.
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Be sure to subscribe to Out of Zion now on Apple Podcasts, cpnshows.com, YouTube, or
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wherever you like to listen and learn.
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Out of Zion with Susan Michael is a production of ICEJUSA, All Rights Reserved.
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Well, if you've tuned in to listening to me today, it's because you're interested
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in developing a relationship between Jews and Christians.
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But you do not learn how to conduct Jewish-Christian relations by reading a book, even though I'm
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going to recommend the best book at the end of today.
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You learn it by engaging in the relationship.
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So we're going to begin today hearing from some people and pioneers that have been involved
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in this relationship for many years.
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Today we're going to start with hearing my story, so please stay tuned.
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Welcome to the Israel Answers series, Connecting Israel, the Bible, and You.
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Join Susan Michael as she explores timely issues and current events from a scriptural perspective
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to equip the Christian world with a balance and biblical response.
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Be sure to subscribe for future episodes, which will ignite your faith and bring the Bible
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to life in your everyday world.
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Now, let's join Susan with your Israel Answers.
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Well I'm often asked how I got started in the ministry of the International Christian
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Embassy Jerusalem and in the work of Christians and Jews working together in support of Israel.
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And I will say that there is just really nothing in my background or my upbringing that pointed
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towards this or that prepared me for it.
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There's only one thing that I can remember from my childhood that would in some way explain.
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And that was the summer of when I was sixteen going on seventeen and I gave my life to the
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Lord.
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I said these words, Lord I'll go wherever you want me to go and I'll do whatever you
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want me to do.
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Well I never expected that he wanted me to do anything outside of my hometown or my home
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state, much less outside of my country.
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But within two years I was on an airplane to Israel for a summer study program and that
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summer changed my life and it changed the trajectory for my life.
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So once I finished my college degree in biblical studies I returned to Israel.
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It was now the summer of 1980 to begin a master's degree at the same school I had studied that
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summer.
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I wanted more of that life-changing experience.
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I wanted to learn more.
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And so it just so happens that one month after I arrived in Jerusalem that the very first
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Christian celebration of the Fishtabranacals was being held.
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And at that celebration they announced that they were starting the International Christian
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Embassy Jerusalem.
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The director of my school became the founding chairman of the board, a fellow student at
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the school became the financial director.
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I was there the day the ICEJ opened their doors and I was in and out of there every week as
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a member of the family.
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I wasn't on staff because I was a full-time student but I was certainly a part of the
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staff family.
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I met with them regularly to pray and in their devotions and volunteered there.
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So when I finished my master's degree I moved to Washington D.C. on behalf of this new ICEJ
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organization because they wanted their head office for the United States to be in D.C.
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And it took us a few years before it was.
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However, I lived in Washington D.C. 29 years and there I worked very, very closely with
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the Israeli Embassy in helping them develop relations with the Christians in America.
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And I also worked very closely with a number of major Jewish organizations there in D.C.
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And that's how I got involved in actually not just supporting Israel but in working with
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the Jewish community here in the United States.
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Now in Israel I saw the impact of the ICEJ on the relationship because I knew exactly
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what it was like living there in the early 80s.
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You regularly met skepticism.
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You regularly met a little bit of a critical why are you here attitude.
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And 10 years later though I showed up at the FISA tabernacles and I remember being struck
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by the complete change of attitude.
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And people in the coffee shop or on the street, oh are you here for the FISA tabernacles?
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And I was like, well yes I am here for the FISA tabernacles.
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Oh, welcome.
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They were so happy.
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Why?
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Well because 10, 12 years now the ICEJ had been bringing thousands of Christians into
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Jerusalem every fall for this Jewish feast in Hebron's called Sukkot.
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We call it the FISA tabernacles in English.
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And a part of that feast is what's called the Jerusalem march.
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And thousands of Christians would join this march marching through the streets of Jerusalem,
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dressed in national colors and national costumes and carrying banners from their countries,
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letting the Jewish people know that they prayed for them, that they blessed them, and that
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they loved Israel.
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So the ICEJ and particularly the FISA tabernacles had had a tremendous impact on the people
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of Israel and on Jewish-Christian relations.
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So much so that after 20, 25 years of our existence and our consistency and always being
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there and always demonstrating our friendship, we were approached by the Jerusalem Post.
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They wanted to start a Christian edition of their magazine and we partnered with them
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and eventually that magazine went all online.
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But also, around a few years later, we were approached by Yad Vashem.
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And we knew that this was the moment in history that we had to stand up to the plate.
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We had to help Yad Vashem.
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Yad Vashem is the Holocaust Memorial and Remembrance Center in Jerusalem.
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It's a real, very sacred institution of the Israeli government to commemorate the six
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million that died in the Holocaust.
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And many of the founders of Yad Vashem, the directors, the Holocaust survivors that support
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Yad Vashem all understand the role that Christian anti-Semitism played in preparing the way
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for the Holocaust.
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And so when they came to us and said, we are now ready to engage the Christian world, will
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you help us?
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We knew that we had to.
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And so our partnership with Yad Vashem still continues today.
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We call it the Christian Friends of Yad Vashem.
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But that just shows how deep the relationship has been developed.
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And I will tell you, it wasn't easy and they had to learn to trust and we had to learn
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to work together in that sacred institution.
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So these are some of the signs, though, that Jewish Christian relations in Israel has been
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greatly impacted by Christian support of Israel and particularly the pioneering work of the
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ICEJ.
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Now in the United States, it's a slightly slower development because back in the 90s,
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we organized a series of events all across the United States every single year.
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And we would often reach out to the local Jewish community.
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We would invite them to come one evening to a special program.
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We made sure that it would be comfortable for a mixed audience.
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We did everything that we could to accommodate them, but they would not come.
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And the Israeli diplomats from the Israeli embassy in D.C., they would come, they would
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speak at our events.
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They were so frustrated that the local Jewish community did not trust us because the Israeli
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diplomats understood the importance of the Christian support of Israel.
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And they had been working with us in Israel.
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And so the Jewish community, though, in America was just very protective of themselves and
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were afraid.
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Well, I watched it all change overnight in the year 2000.
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In 2000, it was the second Intifada in Israel.
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And you may remember it as a wave of suicide bus bombings in Israel.
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It was so traumatic.
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These terrorists would put on explosive belts.
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They would get on a city bus in the middle of the busiest time of the day surrounded
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by children and women and innocent civilians.
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And they would blow themselves up.
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Tourism came to a screeching halt.
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It was a very dangerous time in Israel.
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You never knew where the next bombing would take place.
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Well, there's no tours.
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There's no tourists in Israel.
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But here comes the FISA tabernacles.
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And what happens?
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We still had a full haul at the convention center.
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Several thousand Christians came from all over the world.
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And we heard stories.
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Some of them would go downtown and ride a city bus in solidarity with the Jewish people.
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Now this had tremendous impact.
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And I remember coming back from the feast, I was in Washington, D.C. in a meeting and
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I heard two Jewish people talking.
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And one said to the other, did you hear about the thousands of Christians that came to Jerusalem
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for the FISA tabernacles?
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And the other one said, yes, maybe they really are our friends.
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And the other one said, maybe we should be working with them.
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And from that point, I began to be invited to speak to the boards of directors of various
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Jewish organizations there in D.C. to travel and speak to their chapter leaders in other
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cities.
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I spoke in synagogues.
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I spoke in Jewish conferences.
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I gave the same talk over and over and over because they wanted to know who are evangelical
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Christians, how many are there, what do you believe, why do you support Israel, and should
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we work with you?
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I am very happy to say that several of those organizations made the official decision to
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work with the Christian community.
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Others said, well, we're just, well, not going to oppose it if any of our chapters went to.
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They're free to.
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And out of this budded relationship in the United States, it is astounding.
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I mean, I was even a keynote speaker at a conference of rabbis and pastors and Christian
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leaders.
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And out of that conference, 10 years ago started a Rabbi pastor Torah story, Torah Study Meeting
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that is still going on today.
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So the relationship has come a long way.
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And what it took was Christians proving their genuine and sincere friendship and that they
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were committed, they were dedicated.
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We were going to be here for the long haul.
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Now I want to share with you four pieces of advice, whether you're Jewish or you're
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Christian and you want to get involved in this relationship.
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And my four pieces of advice are based on mistakes that I made.
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I can give you examples of things that I did that I learned the most from.
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So first is we must understand that this has to be a sincere relationship.
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No hidden agendas, no strings attached.
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We must be sincere and transparent or it will not work.
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Now I want to, I'll tell you a story.
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I will always remember this.
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I mean, Washington, DC, it's somewhere around 2000, 2001.
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The relationship is still very, very new in the United States.
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And we came up with the idea of holding an all day conference in a local church, talking
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about Christian anti-Semitism history, and then that evening to hold a repentance service
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in a local synagogue.
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And so I approached the largest reform synagogue in DC because its founding rabbi had been
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a pioneer in evangelical Jewish relations and I knew him.
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And he told me, he said, look, I no longer have any authority.
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I'm retired.
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I don't have a position or place of authority, but I will certainly let them know that I
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recommend they do this.
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I said, okay.
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So he did, and then I reached out to the head rabbi and he said, well, let me talk to my
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border rabbis and get back to you.
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Took a while, but he called me back.
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He said, listen, I raised the subject with my border rabbis and they just had some concerns
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and they had some questions and these are the kinds of things they were asking.
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And so he'd ask a question and I would respond and I'd give him the answer.
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And he said, okay, well, they also wanted to know this.
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And so I gave him the answer.
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After about the third question and me responding, he said, you know, would you come and meet
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with the border rabbis and allow them to ask these questions and for you to address them?
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I said, sure, no problem.
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So I hang up the phone and then all of a sudden I'm like, the border rabbis, I'm going to
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go before a border rabbis.
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Here I am, I'm all the probably 40 years old young woman.
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What do I know?
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I don't even know what a border rabbis is.
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And it was a little intimidating, but I've always been one to go where angels fear to
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tread and so I'm going to do it.
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And the morning before the meeting, I opened my Bible and the thing just fell open to Proverbs
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31, of course, about the woman of valor.
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And in verse 26, this verse just jumped off the page and hit me in the heart and I knew
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that this was my confirmation, my direction.
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And this is what verse 26 says, she opens her mouth with wisdom and on her tongue is
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the law of kindness.
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Now I read this and I was astounded.
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You understand rabbis specialize in the law.
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They study the law and every interpretation of the law.
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That's their specialty.
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And here the Lord is telling me to go with the law of kindness on my tongue.
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Well I took a big deep sigh of relief.
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I can do that.
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I can be a sincere and kind friend.
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And that's what I did.
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I went there, I met with them, I answered their questions.
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They approved it on the spot and we later were able to hold that service of repentance.
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What a lesson that was for me and I hope you'll take it to heart as well.
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Now a second lesson here that I have for Christians is that we must understand that the Jewish
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people are actually told to be afraid of evangelical Christians.
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They have been told a lot of negative things about us.
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We have been portrayed as only being after their soul that we just want to convert them
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away from Judaism that they will no longer be Jewish and to make them Christian.
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And so we have to give them a level of comfort that actually we are a sincere friend.
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But I'll tell you an interesting story about this.
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So at this time, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004, I'm speaking to all these Jewish groups and I'm
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invited to come to Dallas, Texas to speak to a chapter of one of the major national
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Jewish organizations.
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And so, you know, I'm very busy.
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I give this talk over and over and over.
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So I didn't give it a lot of thought.
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I grabbed my notebook with my notes.
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I'm on the plane to Dallas and all of a sudden I think, wait a minute.
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This Jewish community lives in the heart of the Bible Belt.
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They're surrounded by evangelical churches.
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They know everything I'm about to tell them.
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This talk is not going to fly.
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This is not the right talk to give in Dallas.
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And I started to panic.
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I thought I should have thought about this earlier.
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I should have spent more time preparing.
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And I was really quite worried about it.
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So the director of the chapter picked me up at the airport.
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She took me to dinner before the meeting.
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And so over dinner, I very gently said, so you work closely with the evangelical Christians
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here in Dallas?
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And she said, oh, no, we're scared to death of them.
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I thought, well, there we go.
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It's the same talk tonight.
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And it astounded me, but it showed me that the smaller the Jewish community throughout
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the South, throughout the Christian areas, they are very insular and they're very protective
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and they are actually afraid.
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Now a lot of that has changed in the last 20 years, but it still exists.
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It's still there.
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And you need to understand that.
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Thirdly, is that you Christians need to learn the history of anti-Semitism because most
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of it is the history of Christian anti-Semitism.
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And the Jewish people all know this history.
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And if you don't know it, you don't know the things that they're very sensitive about.
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You don't know those red flag words that you shouldn't use because it means one thing to
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them.
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Now it may mean something different to you, but you need to know what are the hot button
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items?
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What do you need to avoid or to better explain because of the history?
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Now the story I have to tell you about this happened way back in 1980.
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I had just landed in Israel, right off the airplane, Ben-Gurion Airport, and I catch
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a shared taxi up to Jerusalem to my school.
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And in the shared taxi with me is another passenger who happens to be a young college-aged guy
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like me from New York, probably.
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Orthodox Jewish man on his way to study in Jerusalem also.
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So we strike up a conversation and he's very curious, you know, why am I there?
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Where am I studying?
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What am I studying?
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And all of this.
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And then he asks this question, well, what do you want to do after you finish your studies?
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And I said, I think I want to be a missionary.
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Whoa!
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Missionary, that to him means that I am after his soul and I am there to convert the Jews.
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And he clammed up, didn't say another word, I think he was scared to death.
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Now what did I mean by missionary?
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Well, I didn't mean to be an evangelist.
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I meant to be an international Christian worker, so like, you know, I was a musician,
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so I might go and volunteer in a church somewhere in their music department or teach Sunday
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school at a church in a third world country, or maybe I'd work in an orphanage.
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Something like that.
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I was like an administrative person and I was musical and I had a, you know, like to
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help.
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That was my gifting.
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And that's what I meant by the word.
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A lot of our churches use the word missionary in kind of a broad way.
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Not all mission's work of a church is evangelism.
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It can include humanitarian aid.
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And so we use the word in a broad term and I was using it in a very broad term.
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Well, I learned my lesson.
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I've often thought about that poor young man and how I must have scared him.
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Now the last lesson I want to share is for the Jewish people.
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And that is to understand that evangelical Christians really do have good intentions.
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It's just that we're not really skilled or taught about interfaith dialogue.
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We want to work with you, but we really are inexperienced at it.
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So when we make a mistake, use it as a teaching moment and help us learn from it.
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I think you'll find that we are so eager to learn from our mistakes.
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We have a good heart and we have good intentions.
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So now my closing story today about this point is back in 1996, we were celebrating the 3000
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year anniversary of the city of Jerusalem being made the capital by King David.
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So we did a series of events all around the world called Jerusalem 3000.
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And all around the world we had invited the Jewish community to our events and to celebrate
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with us.
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So the date I was given for when the team would be in the United States was in June.
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And so we began, we rented a huge hall in Washington, DC.
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It held 4000 people and we did a lot of promotion.
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And we reached out to all the churches through radio and everything.
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We also reached out to the Jewish community and invited them to come celebrate with us.
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And one of the things that we did is that I wrote a letter to all the rabbis in the
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DC area letting them know what we were doing and that we were inviting them and their congregation
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to attend.
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And I had a couple of Jewish leaders that were working with me on the event and I was
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talking to them about it.
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They helped me get the list of rabbis.
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I was getting advice.
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But nevertheless, I made a big mistake.
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But what was the mistake?
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I didn't realize that the two main Jewish leaders giving me advice were both from the
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reform movement.
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And that means that they're not very legalistic in ways that the conservative and the Orthodox
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and the ultra-Orthodox were.
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So the date I was working on in June was the longest day of the year.
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It was a Saturday night and it was the longest Saturday in the whole year.
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And our event was starting at 7.30 p.m.
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Well, for the religious Jewish community, Shabbat didn't end until after 8.30 that night.
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And so I got a phone call from the head of the board of rabbis in Washington, DC to let
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me know that my letter and my invitation were offensive because I was asking them to break
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Shabbat.
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I was devastated, absolutely devastated.
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Once again, at this time, I'm not even 40 by then.
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I mean, I'm a young woman.
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I'm just trying to carry out this event.
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And I was really devastated.
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So I asked the rabbi, I said, what should I do?
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Should I write a letter of apology?
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And if I do, would you be willing to read the letter before I send it to make sure that
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it's okay?
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And when I asked that, it melted his heart.
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He realized she is so sincere.
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This was a sincere mistake.
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There was nothing behind this.
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There was no animus.
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And he said, I would be happy to review your letter.
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So I wrote the most sincere letter I could.
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I sent it to him.
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He said, it's great.
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It's beautiful.
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Send it.
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And I sent a letter of apology to all the rabbis in DC.
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I've never made that mistake again, and I never will.
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And this is my point.
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We all make mistakes, but we learn the most from our mistakes.
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So please, let's use those moments as a teaching moment with each other so that Jews and Christians
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can learn how better to relate to each other and how better to work together.
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So I hope you've learned a little something from my mistakes.
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And you've gotten a few chuckles out of my stories.
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And I hope that you'll begin to engage in this amazing opportunity that we have in our
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generation for Jews and Christians to learn to relate.
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Now if you do want to read a little something, I want to recommend to you the book, A Father
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Abraham by Dr. Marvin Wilson.
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We spoke with Dr. Wilson last week.
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Really, I could not recommend his book more.
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It's going to teach you about the history of Jewish-Christian relations, about the Jewish
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roots of the Christian faith.
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It's a textbook.
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You'll want to get it.
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So in today's show notes, we give you the link.
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All right, that does it for today.
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We'll be back next week with another story and lessons learned from a pioneer in Jewish-Christian
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relations.
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I'll see you back here then, and until then, God bless.
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We hope you have enjoyed this episode of Out of Zion with Susan Michael.
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Be sure to subscribe to Out of Zion now on Apple Podcasts, cpnshows.com, YouTube, or
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wherever you like to listen and learn.
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Out of Zion with Susan Michael is a production of ICEJUSA, All Rights Reserved.
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