Our world is in travail. It takes no special sensitivity to realize how pervasive is the stress to which the fabric of our contemporary lives is subjected. Over and over again violence tears apart what, often, it has taken centuries to fashion. And yet violence is not the substance, it is the symptom. Something new is waiting to be born. We are experiencing the birth pangs of a new age, of a new hope. We are present at that sacred moment when new life is about to emerge from the womb of the past...
The questions which address themselves to each of us are: Will we recognize the mystery of this possibility? Will we be open to its opportunities? Are we willing to help it be pulled into the light of tomorrow? Will we turn away preoccupied or cynical, or will we step forward to assist?
— Rabbi Herman Schaalman
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