How to Approach the "Other"

In the Jewish Kabbalah, specifically the Zohar, there is a powerful image that we might find very useful when we encounter someone who is not our faith tradition, not our gender, not our race, or not of our political opinion.

When we meet such a person, the first thing that we encounter is the "garment." This is a metaphor for all the externals concerning that person. In interfaith work, it is the appearance of the person, the way he or she prays, the way these folks celebrate weddings, or funerals. It includes the way they shape their beliefs, and teach their moral taboos.

Beneath the garment is the "body." Now bodies come in different stages of development. There are the new bodies of infants, adolescent bodies, and the bodies of elders. The body is a metaphor for all the meanings and values that support the garment. The meanings and values are what the person holds dear, and these meanings and values change as the person becomes wise.

Then within the body is the "soul." The soul is the sacred space within each person for the Holy. It is wide and spacious for some, and small and narrow for others, but it is there, even if the person wants to deny its existence and believe it is empty.

Finally, there is the "soul of the soul." This is the Mystery itself. It is the Holy One in whom the soul rests. The Holy One is the life of the soul. In some, the Mystery is left to itself for a lifetime, hidden away in the soul's basement apartment. But should the person become aware, then a marvelous relationship begins.

In many of our interfaith relations and in contact with those so different from ourselves, we spend far too much time getting all tangled up in one another's "garments." So tangled up are we, that we miss the fact that this person has a body, a soul, and that a Mystery abides in them as it does in us.

Perhaps our interpersonal relations would improve if we could be a bit more aware of the wholeness of the mystery of the human that we encounter. So, we have begun. Now perhaps we can better continue to accompany one another in wisdom as together we make our way through time in this world.

Carla Mae Streeter, OP

Aquinas Institute of Theology

St. Louis