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Sacks then makes the case that communities of faith can offer a different paradigm. The more friendship we share, the more we have. The more love we give, the more we possess. Instead of division, we’re dealing with multiplication. Sacks goes further to suggest that, because of this, communities of faith have the ability to help heal the wounds inflicted by economics and politics – a concept that takes on particular meaning during an economic recession such as that we’re facing right now. In communities of faith – what Sacks calls “the third domain,” relationships are based not on power or market exchange, but rather on such qualities as chesed (kindness) and rachmones (compassion.)
Sacks’ deceptively simple concept got me thinking about religion more generally. Does religion, in fact, always function in the realm of multiplication – or is there some division and subtraction here as well. Surely there was nothing multiplicative about the religiously-based wars that have taken place throughout history, nor in the religion-based Apartheid in South Africa, nor in the fundamentalist heaven and hell orientation, nor in the religious posturing of Jihadist or West Bank settler extremists in the Middle East, nor, in fact, in the wrangling and contentiousness that sometimes finds its way into the administration of religious congregations.
Might we then have here a useful criterion here for assessing and, in turn, deciding what we do: for examining the particular activities initiated or decisions made within our own faith community, or indeed by any of us participating in the life of this congregation? Are the effects of our actions and activities genuinely multiplicative… or might there be some element of division or subtraction? What do you think? I rather like the idea.
B’Shalom,
Jim
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