Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi Yona Metzger:
Our distinguished guest of honor, head of the Church, head of the largest religion on earth, my honorable colleague the Head Rabbi Rishon LeZion, Rabbi Shlomo Moshe Moshe Amar Shlita, my friends representing the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, the honorable Rabbi She'ar Yashuv and Rabbi Glicksberg, the Minister of Science, mayor of the city of Jerusalem, representatives of world leadership, cardinals and other honored guests.
Your Excellency, welcome to our country, we extend greetings of peace to you here in the city of peace, Jerusalem. Our Holy Land, the land to which we prayed to return during two thousand years of exile. Our eyes shed so very many tears expressing our intense desire to embrace its stones. Praise the Lord, this meeting of ours is being held in the Land of Israel, in our city of Jerusalem, the eternal capital of the Jewish people.
Over its years of Diaspora, the Jewish people knew great suffering and torment. It’s true that due our sins we had been exiled far from our land, but all the prophets promised us the day would come when we would return to our land. Indeed, to our great joy, at this time we are celebrating 61 years since the founding of our state in the Holy Land, the land of the Bible, the land upon whose soil trod our forefathers: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, David and Solomon.
One of the famous prophecies made by the Prophet Ezekiel is the dry bones vision, in which the Lord promises, “I open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves as My people, and bring you home to the land of Israel. Then you shall know that I am the Lord…. I, the Lord, have spoken it and have performed it.”
We feel that this prophecy speaks to us. I come from a family that was almost entirely annihilated in the horrifying Holocaust. The remaining members of the family truly felt they were like dry bones at the end of the war. But thanks to this Divine Spirit, they had the privilege of returning to the Land of Israel and being counted among its founders and builders, and fulfilling the vision of the prophets. They went from bones to independence. As has been said, our history is rife with indescribable suffering, pogroms, banishments, torture and murder, against a religious ideological background and unfathomable hatred. Over what, and why? We shall never understand.
Honorable Head of the Catholic Church, I was thinking that if such an historic encounter, in which the head of the largest religion in the world meets with the head of the Jewish religion, had been held many years prior, how much innocent blood could have been spared, how much senseless hatred could have been prevented in the world? In the context of these feelings, please allow me to express my gratitude for your preventing the bishop who denies the Holocaust from returning to the Church. Had you not done so, it might have sent a message to the President of Iran, who is also a Holocaust denier, granting some kind of legitimization to his openly-declared wish to eradicate our country. I must commend your clear proclamation that anti-Semitism is not only a sin again Jews but also against the Lord.
I am sure that Your Excellency is in full agreement with your predecessor Pope John Paul II, who upon his visit nine years ago placed a very important note between the stones of the Western Wall, in which he asked forgiveness from the Jewish people for the suffering caused us throughout history, and expressed Christianity’s commitment to true brotherhood with us.
Today is a holy day for us, Lag B’Omer, the anniversary of the death of Rabbi Shimon Bar-Yochai, one of the most important rabbis who lived two thousand years ago. He was wise, righteous, holy as an angel of the Lord. He was persecuted by the Roman authorities of the time for daring to speak against their rule. Although his words were uttered in a closed room to only two rabbis, he was forced to escape with his son and hide in a cave in the Galilean mountains for 13 years. He experienced on his own flesh how fateful a person’s words can be. He was persecuted only for his words. Therefore, today the children of Israel observe a custom of playing with bows and arrows, to show the symbolism of the Prophet Jeremiah’s words “'Their tongue is a sharpened arrow.” The upper lip of our mouths is like a bow; the tongue is like an arrow. This teaches us that as long as you hold the arrow in your hand, you control it. As soon as you shoot it, you know not whom the arrow will hurt. The same holds true for a person’s tongue. After the words leave your mouth, you do not know where they may end up striking.
One of the wise men of Israel, Rabbi Samuel HaNagid, who lived in Spain, was a friend of the Muslim Sultan. Sometimes the two of them went walking on the street, and once a Moslem passed in front of them and began cursing the rabbi. The Sultan instructed the rabbi, “You must cut out his tongue.” Half a year later, again the two were walking in the street, and the same Moslem crossed their paths. This time the Moslem blessed the rabbi. The Sultan was surprised and asked the rabbi, “But I told you to cut out his tongue.” The rabbi replied, “I did cut it out.” “So how can he speak?” “Well, I cut out his cursing tongue and attached a blessing tongue in its place.”
We thank the Lord God of Israel that in our generation the language between our religions has become a blessing tongue. We must continue in this path and spread it also to the leaders of other religions, because our goals will not be achieved with terror, by killing innocents they will not be able to represent their God. The Lord is merciful. He commands us all to honor and love all people everywhere, even if they are not the same religion as us, because a person will live by his faith.
I wish to thank you, Your Excellency the Pope, for your historical agreement, as the Church under your leadership undertook, according to the documents we received from the agreements in the dialogue with the Vatican, that from now on the Church will cease all missionary activity and refrain from lobbying amongst our coreligionists to convert them. For us this is important and invaluable news. My thanks for your wish to help the captured soldier Gilad Shalit and for the support you have shown his family. I will greatly appreciate it if the Church will declare a set day each year on which the heads of the Church will not only speak out against anti-Semitism, but also speak positively in favor of our people. It does not suffice to chop off the cursing tongue but it should be replaced with a blessing tongue.
As is known, many parents during the Holocaust deposited their children in trust with various churches throughout Europe. To our sorrow, six million Jews did not return. Many of the children that survived thanks to the Church grew up without knowing their Jewish origins. We expect the Church to demonstrate transparency and reveal their roots so they may choose their national and religious paths for themselves. Lack of transparency in such a delicate matter is liable to perpetuate the suffering of many Jews and, Heaven forbid, achieve the Nazis’ goal of making my people, the Jewish people, disappear.
Your Excellency, you have just arrived at the Western Wall, the remnant of our Holy Temple, the place where Abraham sacrificed his son Isaac. Upon your visit to this place, the words of the Prophet Isaiah came true, “"My house will be called a house of prayer among all nations." Yes, a house of prayer, but unfortunately some have turned their house of prayer into a storehouse of weapons and terror. Our generation is different from the preceding one. The imperialistic aspirations to conquer countries and lands have ceased. Today Europe is like one united country; the entire world has gone global, connected and online. Only one thing still casts a dark cloud on us all – the use of religion as a means of killing innocent people.
As I have suggested in the past, together we must all establish an international body, a kind of United Nations for religions, that will stand alongside the UN for diplomats and statesmen, where representatives of all the religions in the world can sit next to each other around one table, even all those who come from states who have not yet established diplomatic relations, with the goal of trying resolve conflicts and differences of opinions stemming also from religious motives. All this out of faith that the one God created us all.
I wish to close with a heartfelt blessing that together we will be able to add love, honor and peace in our world, and be privileged to quickly see the fulfillment of the Prophet Micah’s words: “But in the end of days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established as the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and peoples shall flow unto it. And many nations shall go and say: 'Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths'; for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem… For let all the peoples walk each one in the name of its god, but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever.” Amen.
Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Moshe Amar:
Honored guests, rabbis and dignitaries, our preeminent guest who has come to the gates of the Holy City in honor and in glory. Your Excellency, I already gave you my messages at our smaller meeting. Please allow me to share with you, along with your distinguished staff, a special personal and national experience, one that expresses the divine, heavenly message through the prophets. After all, it is known that this nation, the people of Israel, is stricken and persecuted. No other people has been as persecuted as this one; there was never a time when this nation was not persecuted; there was no people that did not strike and did not try its strength at persecuting this nation. And the goal was uniform and clear, as already written by King David, “They have said, ‘Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation,
that the name of Israel may be remembered no more.’”
But the Jewish people lives and endures, and King David lives and endures; the guardians of Israel neither slumber nor sleep. We have a promise from all the prophets that this nation will live and endure. And even after everyone despaired – we too were despairing. After the Holocaust, who believed it possible, who still could have conceived of it that this people would still exist and return to its land and remain one nation with its Torah, with its religion, with the Lord’s commandments that were conveyed to us by Moshe His loyal servant? No one thought it could happen.
But the promise has been fulfilled and things are unfolding in front of our very eyes. When I read the words of the Prophet Ezekiel of blessed memory, it is exciting, and I don’t think there is anything as exciting as this. Today while His Excellency is in the Holy City of Jerusalem, after being at the holiest site, the Western Wall, from which the Divine Spirit never moved, the wall of the Temple Mount, behind which is the place of our Holy Temple, I will read a few verses, by your leave, honorable Sir, from Ezekiel, Chapter 37: “The hand of the Lord came upon me and brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley; and it was full of bones. Then He caused me to pass by them all around, and behold, there were very many in the open valley; and indeed they were very dry. And He said to me, ‘Son of man, can these bones live?’ So I answered, ‘O Lord God, You know.’”
One thing has to be understood here. All of the prophet’s power is received from the Lord. And it is a marvelous thing here that the Lord asks the prophet. After taking him, against his will, and after seeing that the valley is full of bones and the bones are dry and not just dry but bone-dry, He asks him. The Lord asks the prophet? I mean, everything the prophet knows comes from the Lord, and yet He asks him, “Son of man, can these bones live?” Why does He ask this question? And the prophet says, I don’t know, You know, Lord; what could I know? But what is the question?
The question comes to arouse the attention of the prophet and all the people of the world, to the dry bones of which the world has despaired, and they are very dry, they have been through all of time. And everyone asks, “Can these bones live?” Is there hope for this people? Does it have a chance? Will this people still rise and stand on its feet? Will this people return to its land? Does it still have something to look forward to? To hope for? And the prophet answers, I don’t know, You know. The Lord tells him, Soon you will see how I send a Spirit and the bones move and attach to one another. I will command my Spirit over them and they will take on flesh and sinews, and in the end they move, and a large, powerful group stands there. And the prophet sees for himself. He sees the reality that no one could have believed. Then the Lord says to the prophet, “Then He said to me, ‘Son of man, these bones are the whole House of Israel. They indeed say, ‘Our bones are dry, our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off!’” He tells him these bones are the entire House of Israel. They also say, Our bones have already dried up; we have lost all hope. But I am sending My Spirit.
And we today, those who merit living in these times and being in Jerusalem and in the Land of Israel, see what the prophet saw in the vision of the bones. We see it happening on a large scale, how this nation is standing on its feet and taking on flesh and sinew, and waving the banner of Torah and Judaism and returning to its land. This is what we say in the Passover Hagadah, “And it is this promise which stood for our fathers, and for us as well, for not only once were we in danger of destruction, but in every generation... and the Holy One blessed be He saves us in every generation from our enemies." He not only saved us in the past but is also saving us in the present and in the days yet to come.
Your Excellency, who represents a great and enormous nation of believers who know what the Bible is, and who know and read the prophets, will pass this message on to the world. This world deserves the natural, minimal right of coming to rest and our endowment in the land that the Lord gave our ancestors and promised to the Jewish people. To come to rest without wars, without troubles, without our having to defend ourselves from this and that, but to honor all others, with them giving us a little, minimal respect, and letting us sit here, in the sense of “.. and live in safety in your land…. I will grant peace in the land, and you will lie down and no one will make you afraid. I will remove savage beasts from the land.” Perhaps this refers to terror “and the sword will not pass through your country.”
Moses our Teacher wrote all this in the Torah. And we pray to the Lord who created the heavens and the earth, and leads the entire world, to put it in the hearts of all the leaders of the world to love one another, to increase love and fraternity, to increase peace in the world, and also to love this small, oppressed, persecuted nation that has finally come to its land, and hopes and expects, and will never stop expecting, to come to rest and into its endowment. With God’s help, may this people find rest. For you as well it will be a great honor and glory and peace. “May he who makes peace in high places, make peace for us and for all Israel” and for Jerusalem, and peace will spread from here along with honor and love to all the world and all the nations of the world. Amen and amen.