Author Archives: Fred Yi

Creative Seder

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BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: This weekend (April 19) the Jewish holiday of Passover begins with its Seder meal — special food and the retelling of the story of the Jewish Exodus from slavery in ancient Egypt.

There’s a couple in Roseland, New Jersey, Murray and Randi Spiegel, who invent each year new ways to dramatize and sing about the traditional story. They’ve become so good at it and have so much fun there’s now a waiting list of their friends who want to come.

MURRAY SPIEGEL (Author, “300 Ways to Ask the Four Questions,” dressed as Moses speaking to Seder guests): Hear ye, hear ye, children of Israel. We must set out into the desert on a historic journey. This is a journey that is going to be told for thousands of years. Let’s bring a map. Yes, let’s bring a map.

Well, my intention was to have something that would always be something fresh and exciting for people.

There are five mitzvahs or commandments during the Seder. You’re supposed to drink four cups of wine. You’re supposed to eat the matzah. You’re supposed to have the bitter herbs. You’re supposed to tell the story…

(Seder guests sing parody to the tune of “Gilligan’s Island” theme song): Well Moses was a pious man. God made him brave and sure. The Pharoah was a mighty man. His heart was not pure, his heart was not pure.

Mr. SPIEGEL: …and to recite psalms of praise.

(Seder guests sing traditional Hebrew song): Eliyahu, Eliyahu…

Mr. SPIEGEL: But the embellishments can take place and the creativity that each individual family would like to go through is under their own determination.

(Praying during Seder meal): At this Passover table tonight we celebrate freedom and redemption. Once we were slaves. Now we are free. Next year may we all be free, all peoples.

The afikommen is one half of the piece of matzah that’s broken. The piece that is broken is hidden away, and the children or the adults can go out to find it later on.

The four questions is something that’s really interesting because they’re a highlight of the Seder. And so what we’ve done is we’ve published a book that is a collection of translations of the four questions.

(Speaking to Seder guests): “Why is this night different from all other nights?”

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1 (repeats question in Yiddish)

UNIDENTIFIED WOMEN #2 (repeats quested in Zulu)

Mr. SPIEGEL (holding up semaphore before seder guests): Around the room — Hebrew semaphore.

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RANDI SPIEGEL (performing rap parody): Gonna tell you all a story ’bout the Jews in Egypt. They had a good thing going, there was no complaint. But then there came this Pharoah who was mean and nasty. He worked them night and day, from the heat they did faint.

Mr. SPIEGEL: (performing rap parody): They pleaded unto God, “Save us all your children.” And God looked unto them. He was quite distressed…

We are supposed to tell the experience as though we are reliving it ourselves. So there are three things we are doing that are associated with the plagues tonight. The first is that we’ve hidden some frogs in our skylight. We’re going to be passing from person to person some of the different animals that are associated with the plagues.

SEDER GUESTS: (reciting plagues, in English and Hebrew, as they pass toy animals around table)

Mr. SPIEGEL: The final plague is the killing of the first born.

The first born of this group have an “X” through them, so this shows what a devastating tragedy it would be for any community to lose all of their firstborn. We never laugh at our suffering. We never laugh at this. But we try to make it more meaningful.

Mr. and Mrs. SPIEGEL (performing a Mozart song parody): Death appeared at their door, and every first-born in Egypt died, including Pharoah’s favorite child. The Jews all followed Moses. They made a swift departure.

SEDER GUESTS: (saying matzah blessing in Hebrew).

Mr. SPIEGEL: We’re having an afikommen race, and so some of the people are trying to solve a puzzle associated with a clay tablet that has the hieroglyphics on it, and the other set of people are trying to find the afikommen and the various hints that we have hidden inside of fakes, so it’s a little bit like a wild goose chase.

Only the lesson that is enjoyed is the lesson that is learned well.

Mr. SPIEGEL (holding up afikommen): Bravo! Cheers!

ABERNETHY: Murray Spiegel is also the author of a book about the Seder: “300 Ways to Ask the Four Questions.”

Eric O. Hanson: A Religious-Political Pilgrimage to the UN

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Today Pope Benedict XVI, like his predecessors Paul VI and John Paul II (twice), made a religious-political pilgrimage to the United Nations. The Catholic Church, which suffered greatly from both Catholic and Protestant nationalisms of the Westphalian system of sovereign nation states (1648-1918), remains anchored in the global system both institutionally and theologically. Indeed, support for the United Nations has endured as a central tenet of Vatican foreign policy and Catholic social theory throughout the postwar period. This support, as Benedict said, is rooted in “the unity of the human family” and in “the innate dignity of every man and woman.”


UN Photo/Mark Garten

The pope reprised John Paul II’s call for a “great degree of international ordering,” respecting, of course, the principle of subsidiarity, which calls for action at the lowest effective level. Benedict stated “it is necessary to recognize the higher role played by rules and structures that are intrinsically ordered to promote the common good, and therefore to safeguard human freedom.” The pope emphasized that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights found its basis not just in positive law, but “by the common desire to place the human person at the heart of institutions, laws and the working of society”. Therefore “human rights are increasingly being presented as the common language and the ethical substratum of international relations.”

Most religious thought, including this speech, emphasizes that rights also call for responsibilities. Interreligious dialogue must bring together all people of good will to solve global problems like war, poverty, and environmental degradation. Benedict especially mentioned “those countries of Africa and other parts of the world which remain on the margins of authentic integral development, and are therefore at risk of experiencing only the negative effects of globalization.” Theologically the pope tied the UN’s “responsibility to protect” to previous writings of the sixteenth-century friar-scholar Francisco de Vitoria and strong support for universal human rights to the fifth-century bishop Augustine. The pope also emphasized the crucial importance of religious freedom among human rights.

What role, then, can the pope and other religious leaders like the Dalai Lama and Jewish and Islamic scholars play in “the new world disorder” of the twenty-first century? We have all left the “security” of the Cold War paradigm for an increasingly fragmented, chaotic, and polarized world at all levels, from the very local to the most global. The rise of countries like China, India, and Brazil and the communications revolution mean that many more nationalisms will have to be factored into any common decisions. In fact, any global problem worth solving, from Darfur to Palestine to global warming, will require the cooperative efforts of all the stakeholders. A single stakeholder, even by inaction, will be able to block most solutions, whether it be Beijing on Darfur or Hamas on Palestine. We have thus entered an era where the only successful global politics will depend on overwhelming cooperative “grand majorities” among nation states and political movements with a multitude of reasons to distrust each other.

What might religion in general and Catholicism in particular contribute to building trust among such disparate international political actors? The significances of interreligious dialogue and cross-national understandings, especially between the global north and the global south, are obvious. The former demands men and women of considerable spiritual depth and shrewd political craft (“discernment” in the pope’s speech). The latter calls for men and women of every nation to orient themselves to the universal human common good and not to narrow nationalist agendas.

The principal importance of today’s papal speech to the United Nations is to call all people of good will to answer this challenge in hope. While secularism might have been the better political course for the West following the Thirty Years War, today’s incredibly complicated global society can only escape its increasing economic stratification, multiplying civil conflicts, and environmental degradation with increased motivation and participation of all believers.

— Eric O. Hanson is the Donohoe Professor of Political Science at Santa Clara University and author of RELIGION AND POLITICS IN THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM TODAY (Cambridge, 2006).

Anne-Marie Slaughter: Dialogue and Faith

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UN Photo/Mark Garten

The pope offered a vision of a world in which faith can draw the world’s peoples and cultures together instead of pushing them apart. Not because all people share a common faith, or even through the common respect for human life and human dignity that underlies all faiths, although the pope also emphasizes that point. But rather through the ways in which religion creates space for dialogue — dialogue that is itself “the means by which the various components of society can articulate their point of view and build consensus around the truth concerning particular values or goals.” As the pope affirmed, in what was for me the most arresting sentence in his speech, “It pertains to the nature of religions, freely practised, that they can autonomously conduct a dialogue of thought and life.” In other words, religion, as a holistic system of beliefs, codes of conduct, and the connections that build community, creates a space for thinking and talking about the big questions in life, the life and death issues on which peoples around the world must find at least minimum consensus. It is a space in which people of different faiths feel comfortable meeting, divorced from politics but with results that can influence politics. Across the horizons opened up by their different faiths, believers can develop a common “vision of faith,” in the pope’s words, that rests on “complete respect for truth, coexistence, rights and reconciliation.” If we imagine that space as an institution, it would be the United Religions, bringing together all the diversity of the world’s religions to argue and debate and find common ground in support of political action. Compare this vision of the role of religion in the world with dark predictions of a clash of civilizations, of the threat of Islamo-fascism, and of violent schisms within faiths like the divide between Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims. Pope Benedict is on to something, and what better place to articulate that vision than the United Nations.

— Anne-Marie Slaughter is Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and author of THE IDEA THAT IS AMERICA: KEEPING FAITH WITH OUR VALUES IN A DANGEROUS WORLD (Basic Books, 2007).

Jeffrey Haynes: An Uncontroversial Yet Welcome Speech by An Internationalist Pope

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UN Photo/Mark Garten

Pope Benedict spoke from the perspective of a committed internationalist. This was evident from the very fact that he accepted the invitation to speak at the UN. He emphasized several themes: human rights, inter-religious dialogue, peace and development, security, science and technology. and environmental protection. His main theme was that of human rights, unsurprising given that it is the 60th anniversary of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. For him, a key merit of the Universal Declaration of 1948 was its concern to express a fundamental nucleus of values, and hence of rights, applicable to all cultures and religions.

A second key theme was inter-religious dialogue. He reminded his audience that in his recent encyclical, Spe Salvi [“Saved by Hope”], he stated that “every generation has the task of engaging anew in the arduous search for the right way to order human affairs.” This was a clear indication of the imperative for those of different religious faiths to talk to each other in pursuit of cooperative goals. Third, he spoke of the importance of UN efforts to help achieve global peace and development. He noted that his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, highlighted this theme in 1995 at the UN. Benedict agreed that the UN should be “a moral centre where all the nations of the world feel at home and develop a shared awareness of being, as it were, a ‘family of nations.'” Benedict’s speech was very much in the same vein as that of his predecessor, stressing that the UN must work hard to build a global community, with shared values. Fourth, Benedict highlighted several burning contemporary security issues and problems: the problem of how to achieve development goals globally, how to reduce local and global inequalities, better protection of the environment, of resources and of the climate. He noted that beneficial action in these often linked areas would “require all international leaders to act jointly and to show a readiness to work in good faith, respecting the law, and promoting solidarity with the weakest regions of the planet.” He did not mention terrorism, except in passing, implying that terrorism arises out of stark and continuing developmental imbalances. He also spoke about the negative effects of globalization, especially experienced in Africa and other desperately poor parts of the world; scientific research and technological advances that. while they can bring enormous developments, can also lead, he claimed, to clear violations of “the order of creation, to the point where not only is the sacred character of life contradicted, but the human person and the family are robbed of their natural identity.” He also mentioned the necessity of swift, coordinated, and effective international action to preserve the environment. Overall, this was an uncontroversial — yet no less welcome for that — speech. It highlighted both Benedict and the Church’s internationalist credentials and went some way to gainsaying the idea that he is a dyed-in-the-wool conservative.

— Jeffrey Haynes is professor of politics at London Metropolitan University and the author of “An Introduction to International Relations and Religion” (Longman, 2007).

Charles K. Wilber: Benedict at the UN on Human Rights and Human Development

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“The promotion of human rights remains the most effective strategy for eliminating inequalities between countries and social groups, and for increasing security.” With this statement Pope Benedict XVI emphasizes that true human development in the world must be built upon respect for fundamental human rights. To ignore these rights is to promote a distorted and unethical development. We see this result in the food shortages around the world that have led to riots in Haiti, many countries in Africa, and that threaten to do so in Malaysia and Indonesia. Simple free market driven development, where success is measured by increases in per capita GDP, runs the risk of leaving out the poorest and most marginalized peoples. Their human rights must be respected, as they are embedded in the fact that they are human beings made in the image and likeness of God.

— Charles K. Wilber is emeritus professor of economics at the University of Notre Dame.

Pope Benedict XVI’s U.N. Address

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BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: Coming up a live special report: Pope Benedict XVI addresses the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

Welcome. I’m Bob Abernethy of RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, and this is a special, live report on Pope Benedict XVI’s address to the United Nations in New York. This is Benedict’s first trip to the U.S. since being elected pope and his first address to the UN. He’s expected to speak for about 25 minutes. He’ll read the first part in French with an English translation and then switch to English. We go now to the U.N. and to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI.

POPE BENEDICT XVI (addresses United Nations General Assembly in prepared speech: available online here.)

post01-un-addressABERNETHY: Pope Benedict XVI addressing the United Nations in New York, offering his greetings to the 192 members in the six official languages of the UN, saying, “Peace and prosperity with God’s help.”

It was a very philosophical message that the pope gave, urging world leaders to emphasize and respect the fundamental religious and moral principles underlying the global issues and choices that the UN faces.

I’m Bob Abernethy of RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY. With me to discuss the pope’s speech is Kim Lawton, managing editor of RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, who has been covering the pope since his arrival in Washington last Tuesday (April 15)

KIM LAWTON (Managing Editor, RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY): Well, you really saw the professorial side of this pope for this speech. It’s something he does a lot: He stresses sort of the fundamentals, the foundations, and rather than going through a whole laundry list of specific global issues, this speech really talked about the foundations that these issues flow from, from this pope’s perspective. So he talked a lot about human rights and within that this inherent human dignity — the fact that all people, no matter where you live or no matter what your economic status might be, everyone has an inherent human dignity. And that, of course, flows, from his perspective, from God, from being created in the image of God, from his perspective. But how he phrases it to the UN is this is natural law, something that all people have.

ABERNETHY: And he spoke of the human person and how that concept of the human person underlies even human rights.

LAWTON: Right, again this notion of human dignity. It was interesting in the speech — he began the speech in French, and it was during the French portion that he did speak about a few fundamental issues, specific issues, such as the environment. He mentioned a couple times the importance of the environment. He also talked about poverty and developmental issues. But he didn’t talk a lot about — he talked about terrorism and security, but he didn’t mention Iraq at all, which sort of interested me. He talked a lot about the importance of the world community working together and finding ways of cooperating together. There was a strong support for the UN. This pope has been very supportive of the United Nations, and he expressed that and raised concerns about small numbers of nations making decisions that affect the globe on their own. No specific countries were mentioned, no specific situations were mentioned. But, again, his support for a “global solidarity” is what he calls it, again, coming out of a cooperation and dignity for everybody.

ABERNETHY: And this speech, this speech today at the UN, his first as pope, following two other popes who as popes have addressed the UN, this follows a very busy and well-received several days in Washington. And you’ve been covering the pope, since he arrived last Tuesday (April 15). Maybe you’d take us through a little bit.

LAWTON: Well, first I just wanted to point out, if I might, one more issue from the speech before we talk about that. Within the human rights he did spend a lot of time talking about religious freedom, which is a very important concern for this pope, and what he said was religious freedom doesn’t just mean the exercise of religion, but it also means allowing religion to have an impact on the society around it. These were themes that he did also sound earlier in the week here in Washington as well. But that’s been an issue for him especially in relationships with the Islamic world. He’s pleaded for what he calls reciprocity, meaning that countries — if Muslims are allowed to have mosques in Christian nations, then Christians should be allowed to have churches in Muslim nations. And he’s also recently made some high profile statements about the right of conversion — that religious freedom includes the right to change one’s religion. Now this is a controversial concept in the Islamic world, and in some countries it’s against the law to convert to another faith. Just before Easter, this pope baptized a very prominent Italian Muslim at a ceremony in St. Peter’s Basilica. A lot of Muslims saw that as kind of a provocative act. But that was this pope saying religious freedom involves more than just exercising your religion in the privacy of your own home. He talked a lot about, earlier this week as well during his trip to Washington, this notion of having faith have an impact in the public square. He really praised American Catholics for being involved in American society, and many times, on many fronts he praised the vitality of the U.S. church and said that American Catholics really need to guard against letting what he called increasing secularism of the culture squelch that. He wants to see faith have an impact.

ABERNETHY: And we’re looking at some of these wonderful pictures of Benedict XVI in Washington as he arrived and visited the White House with President Bush. And also, along the line of what you were saying about the importance of interfaith dialogue, he did meet with, in Washington, with representatives of other religions.

LAWTON: Yes. He met with other faith leaders. It was a brief meeting and very symbolic, although several of those religious leaders told me symbolism is important. It shows that this pope does want to reach out. But I think he wants to reach out on his own terms. And, you know, it’s not just like aren’t we all just warm and fuzzy, but there are real issues to be discussed, and that’s part of what he says. You know, at that meeting at the White House he did talk with the president about Iraq there. We know that this pope was against the invasion of Iraq, the U.S. invasion. But the White House says that they stressed more the humanitarian situation inside Iraq, and it’s this pope’s concern about the many refugees from the violence.

ABERNETHY: And he was very well-received in Washington, on the streets and everywhere he went.

LAWTON: It’s interesting, because a lot of Americans feel like they don’t really know this pope. Certainly John Paul II was this enormously popular figure, very charismatic, and people have been a little less sure about this pope. So I think it’s been interesting for people to see him, get a closer view of him, and they’ve been lining the streets to meet him.

ABERNETHY: And he did something that many, many, many Catholics and others have very much wanted him to do. He met with victims of the sex abuse scandal.

LAWTON: He did. That was a big question before the trip — to what extent would the pope address the clergy sex abuse crisis, which is still a major concern for the church here. It’s had a huge and lingering impact. In fact, before he came there was some pressure put on him to actually go to Boston, which was the epicenter of the sex abuse crisis. In the end, the Vatican chose not to do that, but the pope has been raising this issue repeatedly. I think a lot of people were surprised. They expected maybe one mention. He’s referred to it repeatedly, and in fact he did meet privately with a group of victims. We think this is the first time a pope has ever –

ABERNETHY: — from Boston.

LAWTON: From Boston. Indeed, from Boston. Now it’s interesting that in none of those victims were some of the key activist leaders that have been really pushing the church to do a better job of this, and some of those victims’ advocacy groups say that they were pleased about this but it’s just a small first step, and they still want to see more discipline for church officials that covered up the crisis and that enabled some of these priests to continue. So — but a lot of people were genuinely pleases that this pope took so much time to meet, in a very busy schedule, to make time for this and to put this really front and center of his visit.

ABERNETHY: And to speak about — he said at one point words failed him. He couldn’t express the shame.

LAWTON: He said he was ashamed and he also pledged that the church would do what it can to keep pedophile priests out of the priesthood.

ABERNETHY: We’re seeing scenes now from the Mass now at Nationals Stadium in Washington, well attended. Probably could have packed two or three times as many who wanted to get there as were able to get in.

LAWTON: Well, those tickets were really hot commodities around town, and the church was very concerned about possible scalping of the tickets. It was very crowded. But I think it was one of those moments people got to see this pope. It was very well scripted. A lot of things surrounding this pope are very well scripted. But there were a few human moments as well that touched people. On his way out of the Mass he actually stopped and kissed a baby, like a good politician in Washington might and that had the crowd on their feet yelling. During his homily as well at Nationals Stadium he also encouraged Catholics again to enact their faith in the public square. That’s been a common theme, and then one that we heard even today at the UN — that religion has a role to play in the public, that religious groups have a contribution to make to society on the national level, bringing their values to society, and as we heard today at the UN, on the international level. He said that religious communities were standing by to help foster dialogue and prevent violence. And certainly in these times when religion is so tied to a lot of the violence, he’s offering his community as a possible solution. And that’s been a big theme for his papacy.

ABERNETHY: One of the things in Washington, as you pointed out, this pope has not been well known here in polls leading up to this visit. A lot of people said they really didn’t know him very well. There was the pageantry and the messages, true. But I think it was that gesture, that gesture with the victims of the sex abuse crisis that probably moved people favorably in their opinion of this pope, as much at least than any other thing he did.

LAWTON: Well, certainly I think that was a very important moment in this visit, and I do think it was part of a humanizing of this pope in a lot of ways. He had this image of this Germanic, maybe kind of cold and aloof, and he is very well scripted – again, I think part of that professorial part of him. But there was a warmth and humanity.

ABERNETHY: But his manner is not the manner of a lecturer or the preacher. It’s a very quiet manner of one of almost talking to a small group.

LAWTON: Well, he’s used to speaking to, you know, as a lecturer in a classroom setting, I think. People say that he is rather shy personally, and John Paul II, meanwhile, was an actor and so more comfortable on a public stage. But this pope has a very pastoral concern, and again, his emphasis is on the basics, on the foundations — the foundations of faith and the foundations of philosophy, as we heard today at the UN speech, that underpin the issues that he’s most concerned about, and I think that’s what’s been coming through.

ABERNETHY: Yes, and probably his speeches, especially this one at the UN, probably will be the basis for a very great amount of study when one can read them and think about what he was saying.


LAWTON: Well, that’s what people say. All of his speeches need a lot of study, a lot of, really, dissecting. But meanwhile the spin doctors are going to be taking a look and moving it in their direction, every which way.

ABERNETHY: Just like the [presidential] campaign. Kim Lawton, many thanks. This has been a special report from RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY on Pope Benedict XVI’s address to the United Nations.

Click here for much more on the pope’s visit to the U.S.

Abraham Foxman: Catholics and Jews

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The national director of the Anti-Defamation League is meeting in Washington with Pope Benedict XVI and a group of interfaith leaders. Foxman was born in Poland and saved from the Holocaust as an infant by his Polish Catholic nanny, who baptized and raised him as a Catholic during the war years. He recalls a conversation with Benedict about that experience.

Kim Lawton: With the Pope at the White House

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Producer Patti Hanley and I were on the press list to cover Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the White House this morning.

The massive security surrounding the pope’s visit meant we had to arrive at the White House more than two hours before the 10:30 a.m. event began. We waited in a long line at the press entrance on the northwest side. After being cleared through the security, we made our way up the circular driveway in front of the White House, past all the TV cameras set up to do live reports. We waited again in the briefing room, where all the White House press conferences take place. It’s not a big place to begin with, and it was mobbed with reporters from all over the world. Tim Russert and Matt Lauer of NBC were hanging out nearby, as were several religion reporters we see frequently at big faith-related news events.


White House photo by Shealah Craighead

It was a beautifully sunny day, so we eventually wandered outside to wait in the driveway. As the time for the ceremony got closer, VIP participants were escorted past us in waves, like a parade. First came the U.S. cardinals, then the bishops. After them were the boy scouts and girl scouts, the Knights of Columbus in their full regalia. and then Catholic students in their school uniforms. After that came a wave of interfaith representatives. Among those I saw were Archbishop Demetrious, head of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, Imam Talal Eid from the Muslim community in Boston, Protestant mainline denominational leaders, and several Jewish representatives. I was particularly interested to see a Sikh man wearing the traditional turban. Sikhs will not be attending an interfaith meeting with Pope Benedict on Thursday, April 17, because as a matter of religious conscience they refused to remove their ceremonial daggers, called kirpans. The Secret Service had demanded they do so, saying that no weapons can be so close to a visiting head of state. I wonder how they got around it for this event?

Finally, the reporters were escorted into a White House hallway and on through to the South Lawn, past some beautiful tulips in full bloom. We walked past the military honor guard and bands, then around to front and center on the lawn. It was a great position, except that it was so crowded we couldn’t really see the pope or the president unless we stood on our tiptoes.

The crowd was very excited, at times yelling “Viva el Papa.” Just before soprano Kathleen Battle came out to sing the Lord’s Prayer, the audience spontaneously broke out singing a rendition of “Happy Birthday” to the pope. Today is his 81st birthday.

You can read the president’s and the pope’s remarks here.

The ceremony was brief, just about a half hour, although that was probably too long for the three girl scouts who fainted and had to be carried out of the ceremony.

After both speeches, a military choir sang “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” From my spot, I could see Senator Joe Lieberman waving a small U.S. flag and a small Vatican flag in time to the music. Then Kathleen Battle led the crowd in an official version of “Happy Birthday” to the pope.

Benedict and Bush went into the Oval Office for a private meeting. Their joint statement released after the meeting is here:

We fought the crowds to get out of the White House grounds and meet up with our crew, stationed along the popemobile route.