Touching the divine
Elijah Interfaith Summer School 2022 — day 5 Thursday 28th July 2022
I had wondered why we were going to a private address. It took us 90 minutes to get there as we got lost and found many times. Esther was born in France in 1930. She recalled her story of the Nazis placing her and her family in a camp near Paris. She had not been sent to Germany as her father had a British passport. After the war, they decided to leave France for the new state of Israel.
She trained as a nurse and then travelled to Kenya, Swaziland and Uganda with her husband who worked for the Foreign Office. It was in Kenya that she discovered Brahma Kumaris.
Although a Jew, Esther’s family was not religious.
I was reminded by her story of how as people we are touched by differing things. It seems sometimes we find it difficult to understand the reason someone so similar to us may take a different path. I have come to see it as simply different people connecting with different things.
In the early evening we heard from
Haviva Pedaya
and Vince Cornell
They presented papers, Haviva on Jewish mysticism and Vince on Islamic mysticism.
I am only beginning to understand mysticism in Judaism while building on what I already know of it in Islam.
Both point to an experience of life that is possible whereby we can become one with God and in so doing we see life from the divine.
g
