Elena, member of the Shalom Community from Brazil, an assistant to Greek Catholic Archbishop Elias Chacour and a friend of the Haifa kehilla, has sent us a report of the meeting between the Archbishop and Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger.
 On December 1, 2009, Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger, accompanied by Rabbi Shear Yashuv Cohen, Chief Rabbi of Haifa, paid a visit to Greek Catholic Archbishop Elias Chacour in Haifa. This was a courtesy visit and a sign of friendship upon which dialogue must be based. Archbishop Elias Chacour, who speaks fluent Hebrew and was praised for it at the end of the meeting, welcomed Rabbi Metzger very warmly. In his words, he played on the letters of the word law (Torah) in Hebrew, stressing that there is no possibility of Law if the three main religions who live and love God in Israel, do not make every effort to respect one other and pursue peace. As a gift to the Rabbi, he presented the best-seller 'Blood Blothers', which is the life testimony of a Christian-Arab family, the bishop's own story, when the State of Israel was created.
Rabbi Yonah Metzger also spoke with great warmth in his speech and was open to reply to questions from the very selected audience. The Archbishop insisted that this personal meeting was a visit to the Church of Galilee but he had desired to preserve a fraternal atmosphere by inviting only a few people. There were present some priests, members of the Educational Committee, which supports the Archbishop in his task of directing the schools of the diocese, especially the Mar Elias Educational Institution in Ibillin, some employees of the Archbishopric and members of the Shalom Community.
When the members of the Shalom Community were introduced to the Chief Rabbi by the Archbishop, he seemed very intrigued that a group of Brazilians, all Christians with no Jewish background, living as consecrated people in the Holy Land, belonged to a new community with the name "Shalom". How did this come about!? He also asked, how long we intended to stay. With the help of Viviane, from our community and a member of the Haifa kehilla, we honestly and humbly replied: "Only God knows we have no plans!" He was intrigued a second time.
At the end of the meeting, the Chief Rabbi told an interesting story. He said that once Hillel, the great teacher, was asked to briefly summarize the Law while the person who was asking the question stood on one foot. He said that the Law is this: do not do to others what you do not want to be done to you. He then added that he knew that for Christians the Law is more demanding as we are asked to love even our enemies... |
