Alice and I spent two weeks in San Antonio, Texas, for our High Holy Days – Rosh Hashana, our Jewish new year, and 10 days later, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. This was my first time leading and facilitating services for a Reconstructionist congregation, even though I graduated from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Seminary. It was so refreshing to be with a congregation whose principles and perspective was in sync with my own.

Reconstructionist Jews believe strongly that we need to pray with intellectual and emotional honesty. It is very important to say what we mean and feel. In order to accomplish that, some of our traditional prayers have been slightly modified to reflect our values. These include: 1) egalitarianism: we include our matriarchs along with our patriarchs in our liturgy; 2) universalism: the belief that all of humanity is connected and our fates are intertwined, therefore we pray not only for peace in Israel (our particular interest), we also pray for the peace of all people on Earth (our universal interest); 3) nonchauvinism: the belief that all peoples and cultures have a purpose and a unique mission, and that the Jews are not the chosen people, but rather all peoples are chosen for their own particular purposes and mission; and finally, 4) affirming a natural God concept: the belief that God is not supernatural, but rather is best understood and felt as a natural part of our unfolding universe.

San Antonio has the largest Hispanic population per capita in the United States. This sense of multiculturalism is strong due also to the many armed forces and military bases in the area. There is a great deal of “intermarriage” between people of different backgrounds as San Antonio fosters positive relations between the various cultural and ethnic groups who live together in this growing and diverse city.

We traveled to southwest Texas, a seven-hour drive, to Big Bend National Park where we went hiking in the Chisos Mountains and rafted on the Rio Grande along the Mexican border. On the way down, we scanned the radio stations and came upon either country-western music stations or religious-evangelical stations, neither of which I can listen to for too long. So, Alice put on a Dixie Chicks CD which we had brought with us and we sped west on Route 10 at 80 mph in our rented Toyota Corolla amidst the multitudes of large white pickup trucks.

My favorite road sign was, “Don’t mess with Texas.” My first thought was that now I understand better the Bush mentality of “you are either for us or against us.” Now we have a president who is bringing that mentality of “don’t mess with Texas/don’t mess with the USA” to our world stage. How sad! I learned later that this sign in reality was part of an anti-litter campaign!

Our prayers at this important and challenging time need to be for peace in our world. It is clear how interconnected we all are, how interconnected all living systems are. If there is conflict somewhere, that conflict affects us all to some extent.

We need to “mess” with each other more in peaceful and affirming ways. We need to be part of an army bearing arms for peace and committed to conflict resolution, not using weapons to impose our will on others and cause death, havoc and destruction on ourselves and others. Our country’s leaders who are pointing to Iran and their activities scare me – are they trying to lead us into another war? Why are we so unable to resolve our conflicts through mediation and diplomacy? Please, “mess” with us and let us begin various diplomatic discussions so as to try to solve some of our challenges peacefully.

In our Reconstructionist prayer book or “machzor,” it is noted, “Our liturgy reflects an understanding of God as the Source of goodness, the Life of nature, and the Power that makes for salvation … We cannot know what happens to us after we die, but we can, by our thought and action, affirm the possibility of this-worldly salvation.” It is our responsibility to help bring peace to our world.

We, in a way, are the messiahs, the ones who can bring change to our world. It is our responsibility to create a paradigm shift from blame to shared responsibility, from violence to peaceful resolution, from hatred to compassion, from acts of injustice to seeing the divine in all things.

May this new year of 5768 in our Jewish calendar bring about changes for peace, justice and compassion throughout our world.

Rabbi Barry Krieger is the rabbinic facilitator for the Hillel organization at the University of Maine in Orono. He may be reached via bkrieger56@aol.com. Voices is a weekly commentary by Maine people who explore issues affecting spirituality and religious life.