A Community with No Boundaries

I have been privileged to spend four decades in higher education. Each and every student who has crossed my path has taught me something. I hope I have offered a small teaching in return. But no learning experiences can match the growth that comes from an immersive, deep-diving international opportunity. This year, our Interfaith Medical Service Trip to San Lucas was perhaps the best illustration ever. Our group of twelve students came together 7 months ago to bond and to learn, to prepare themselves and to chart a course of service to the other. We prepared to join in bringing healing at the hands of our medical team, and to be in solidarity with the descendants of the great Mayan civilization.

But this particular team went above and beyond anything I had ever experienced. The community they created knew no boundaries. Each and every one could at any time step up to the plate to do what needed to be done, to lead and to follow. Each one extended a hand as we climbed the hill to the clinic, unloaded suitcases filled with hygiene packs and pharmaceuticals, and incredibly, though we only had one “count-off” that went smoothly, showed up on time and ready for service – every time!

Most of all, this team looked like the world community they were to serve. Our students came from continents around the globe, faith traditions that reflected journeys in dialogue with the Divine, and every hue of God’s created humanity. And the experiences they shared included Mayan spiritual ceremonies, a visit to the Holocaust Museum in Guatemala City and a meeting with the president of the Jewish community of Guatemala. Sabbath eve dinner in Antigua added young voices rising in wishes of Shabbat Shalom (a Sabbath of Peace) as hugs and embraces were exchanged around the festive table. New initiatives have been put into place for future trips to include meetings with the Imam serving the mosque in Guatemala City, and the potential collaboration with Padre Sergio, a Diocesan priest, doing incredible mission-driven work in Coban with the most economically and health impoverished young and old Guatemalans.

When you open your eyes to see interfaith, when you open your hands to do interfaith, and when you open your heart to feel interfaith, the world enters easily into your young soul. These young souls will yet bring peace to our fragile world. I am certain of it.

Rabbi Abie Ingber