[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Page 6727]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                         ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

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             A PASSOVER MESSAGE FROM RABBI ISRAEL ZOBERMAN

 Mr. ALLEN. Mr. President, I ask that a ``Passover Message from 
Rabbi Israel Zoberman'' be printed in the Record.
  The message is as follows:

       The Biblical account of the Exodus from Egypt became the 
     Leitmotif of Rabbinic theology, perceiving in the Israelites' 
     redemption from a House of Bondage God's guidance and 
     goodness. Thus the three Pilgrim Festivals of Pesach, Shavuot 
     and Sukkot, revolving around the common theme of the Exodus, 
     point at the divine gifts of both freedom and responsibility 
     as essential requirements for fulfilling the human potential.
       The awesome and complex journey-physically, spiritually and 
     psychologically--from servitude to liberation of the people 
     of Israel was to be a model for the entire human family, 
     culminating the Messianic vision of a world redeemed in the 
     prophetic promise. We have chosen to transform the bitter 
     herbs of our exile into the sweet charoset of homecoming in 
     all. It is the symbolic hovering presence at the Seder table 
     of the prophet Elijah for whom we open the door and set aside 
     a special cup of wine, which provides the eternal hope for 
     universal shalom. It is the peace we have kept alive as a 
     flickering light in the darkness of a trying and challenging 
     history.
       Our Passover joy is diminished though by the continued 
     detention in China of the twenty-four-member crew of the U.S. 
     Navy plane as we pray and call for their release, as well as 
     the release of Dr. Gao Zhan, who has been separated for too 
     long from her husband and child in Virginia. The festival's 
     promise by a compassionately passionate heritage is 
     ultimately rooted in its revolutionary view of the infinite 
     worth of each of the Creator's children, recalling that God 
     silenced the angels on high when jubilant at the drowning of 
     the Pharaoh's troops. When we particularly preserve our 
     adversary's humanity, difficult as it is, we maintain our own 
     essential human stature.
       We rejoice in the presence of our special guest, Adam 
     Nguyen, who escaped from Vietnam in 1971 and is president of 
     the Zen Buddhism Association of Hampton Roads and whose first 
     Seder it is. As we share our celebration with him, we protest 
     the destruction and desecration of the irreplaceable, 
     precious and priceless two giant Buddha statues from the 
     third and fifth centuries respectively, by the oppressive and 
     repressive Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Pleas from the 
     world at large, including Muslim countries along with its 
     ally Pakistan, to desist from such an unwarranted act fell on 
     deaf ears. An assault on one religion is an assault on all 
     religions and on civilization itself. We congratulate 
     neighboring Tajikistan for restoring another historic Buddha 
     relic.
       We suffer the ongoing lethal violence substituting for 
     life-enhancing vision in our American society sacrificing its 
     precious youth, tomorrow's promise, on the alien altars of 
     the false gods of wanton conduct and perverted values. The 
     plight of the three kidnapped Israeli soldiers and their 
     agonizing families, including Benny Avraham from our sister 
     city of Pardes Katz, remains of grave concern to us. We are 
     in pain given the deadly deadlocked scenario in our beloved 
     Land of Israel, ancient source of shalom's holy wellspring of 
     blessings, still so tragically eluding it and the vastness of 
     a wondrous universe designed to reflect the Divine's loving 
     embrace.
       Rabbi Israel Zoberman, spiritual leader of Congregation 
     Beth Chaverim in Virginia Beach, is President of the Hampton 
     Roads Board of Rabbis and Chairman of the Community Relations 
     Council of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater. He was 
     born in Kazakhstan in 1945 to Polish Holocaust 
     Survivors.

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