Time for Reflection Address By

Rodef Shalom Eliyahu McLean

Wednesday 3 March 2004 at the Scottish Parliament.

Shalom, Salaam,

My name is Eliyahu McLean. I am visiting Scotland from the Holy Land together with a Muslim Sufi Sheikh named Abdul Aziz Bukhari. We have come to be part of the First Annual Festival of Middle Eastern Spirituality and Peace in Edinburgh. Though I am Jewish, born of a Jewish mother, I also have roots on my father's side that go back to Scotland, so I'm a proud McLean as well.

Sheikh Abdul Aziz and I have come from the city of Jerusalem to show how a religious Jew and a religious Muslim can work together for peace.

We help bring together Jewish, Christian, and Muslim religious leaders who seek to bring spiritually based solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We hold regular prayer-for-peace gatherings with people of all faiths in the home of Sheikh Bukhari in the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem's Old City.

 
We seek to reclaim the indigenous Middle Eastern peace wisdom. In Arab culture there is a ritual called 'Sulha', which brings warring tribes together for reconciliation. This is related to the Hebrew word Slicha, forgiveness. So, in the spirit of Sulha, 3 years ago we held a Hannukah-Christmas-Ramadan celebration in the Galilee. Last summer the annual Sulha gathering attracted 1500 people.

We are two deeply wounded people who are blessed and destined to share the same land together, the Land of the Prophets. Though it is called by different names, Israel and Palestine, we believe that the path of spirituality can serve as a bridge for people on all sides.

People ask us, with all the bad news, how you can work for peace. My Rebbe, Shlomo Carlebach, taught me a key principle which I hold onto. It is called 'holy hutzpah'. We have to have the 'hutzpah', the 'audacity', to believe that peace is possible.

Sheikh Bukhari often says that Jerusalem is the heart of the world, and that by healing Jerusalem we will heal the world. Jerusalem has several meanings, in Hebrew: yeru-shalayim, 'you shall see peace' and in Arabic, or-shaleem, 'the light of peace'. So we hope to return Jerusalem to its true purpose, to be the peace capital for the whole world.

So we invite you, the Scottish people, to join us in this endeavour. Join us in this sacred work - come to visit us in Jerusalem, or send us your prayers, or build bridges of understanding, here in Scotland.