teacher and leader to give the award to
and that is Sheikh Hamza Yusuf and
Sheikh Hamza faces an issue in the
Muslim community that we in the Jewish
community face and that and that the
Christian community faces it's the issue
of the of a kind of pull between a
vision of the world based on fear and a
vision of the world based on love and
whether you articulate that in terms of
a certain version of Orthodoxy not all
orthodoxy in the Jewish world but
certain version of Orthodoxy or verses
of certain version of renewal or whether
you articulate that in terms of the slip
between fundamentalists and and say
liberal Christians or whether you act
ikkyu late that in terms of the pull of
a certain kind of Islamic fundamentalism
versus a kind of openness to the modern
world this struggle is going on in all
the different religious communities and
in fact really in the hearts of people
all over the planet hamza has played the
role of creating in this country and
actually now I had the honour of
traveling to Canada to see him speak to
a grouping of Muslims 10,000 Muslims who
he had who had come together to hear him
and respond to his work I was the only
Jew in the in this context no that's not
true my wife was there but Hamza has
played the role of creating a voice for
an Islam that is both authentic to the
text authentic to the tradition and
there and nevertheless open to the
wisdom of that has emerged through the
West and has emerged through some of the
traditions of enlightenment
without capitulating to what is
distorted in West in Western culture and
without slavish ly trying to assimilate
to a Western culture in the way that we
know that in the Jewish world and in the
Christian world those those tendencies
are those attractions led sometimes to a
slavish assimilation in order to fit in
so I'd like to ask Sheikh Hamza to come
up and read to you the award that were
um that we've written for you delighted
that you could make it
okay
if you couldn't magazine and the network
of spiritual progressives is proud to
give this award to Sheikh Hamza Yusuf in
recognition of your contribution to
tikkun olam this tikkun award is
presented in recognition of your role as
a teacher and interpreter of Quran in a
way that is deeply rooted in tradition
and yet reflects also a grappling with
what is best in Western thought and
culture you have guided the creation of
Zaytuna College and our chair of its
Board of Trustees and through that
school you seek an understanding of
Islamic law
that is sophisticated and responsive to
the highest ethical values of the human
race you have been at the forefront of
creating an Islam that rejects
triumphalist interpretations and
combines a traditionalist and mystical
approach with an attentiveness to the
religious and pastoral needs of the
rapidly expanding Muslim community in
the West in this way you have supported
the integration of Muslims into America
without abandoning the deep truths and
insights at Islam bestowed this 14th day
of March 2011 ninth day of Adar two five
seven seven one
this wind
thank you very much I'd like to start
off with a little bit of part on people
will indulge me here do be nahi
mentorship on your knee
it's me now you are mine you Rahim Oh
Rahman an important hot up onions and I
never hold a and a sham someone Hamato
be a husband
one Nigel moon was scheduled a student
was some
or a firewall the reason
let the whole film easin well PMON was
nabila's wanna talk on me
and one or more bar honey Lana
see her hot on one ruder to luck
mommy will help food on last few all
right hands
and that bi jnana
you're on become a to Caliban
come on Eileen this means those verses
are from a chapter called the merciful
which was a name that the Arabs didn't
have for God it was actually introduced
by the Quran and it says the merciful
who taught this recital created the
human being and gave you language and
the Sun and the moon were placed in a
perfect reckoning and the stars and the
trees that adorn the world are in
frustration to the divine and then it
says and and God set up this perfect
balance and told you don't transgress
the balance and establish the balance
with justice and the entire earth was
placed for all living creatures and then
it says which of the favours of your
lord are you in denial of what are you
denying of the favours of your lord one
of the one of the most important in the
Islamic tradition and I feel I can speak
somewhat for the Christian tradition
because I came out of an Orthodox
Christian tradition and also was went to
Jesuit school so my mother was raised in
the Orthodox tradition my father was in
the Catholic my father my last name is
Hansen which is comes from the Irish
Catholics who came to this country were
actually third-class citizens when they
got here in the 1830s and 40s and a lot
of Irish would change their names to
sound more anglo-saxon and so Oh handset
became Hansen and my Irish Catholic
family actually began denying that roots
once they got rid of the brogue and rose
up into Philadelphia society one of the
the most important things in the Islamic
and Christian tradition is the sin of
pride is a real problem spiritual pride
one of the interesting things about
religion is you can take religious jokes
and I do this all the time I hear jokes
about Christians or Jews and I just
changed the name
and they become Muslims and they work
perfectly so you know I heard this with
a different religion but the the Imam is
is in the prayer niche and he has an
epiphany and falls and begins to say I'm
nothing I'm nothing before this Almighty
God and the more evidence in the color
of prayer and sees the Imam saying I'm
nothing I'm nothing and says God if he's
nothing what am i he falls down I'm
nothing I'm nothing and then the guy
that sweeps the mosque comes in and sees
the e great Imam and the prayer caller
and says my god if they're nothing what
am i he falls down at nothing on nothing
and the Imam says to them whether and
look who thinks he's nothing so
spiritual pride is a real problem in our
traditions one of the things that that I
think all of our religions have a
problem with today is that we I think
religions have always been pathogenic in
that they can produce so much trouble in
the souls of people and even though
they're supposedly to actually heal our
souls and a lot of people do very well
usually who are already well they do
well by religion it helps George Bernard
Shaw said that religion the problem with
religion is it only benefits religious
people so but the problem is that when
irreligious people begin to dress in the
cloak of religion all these problems
start and we've got a planet filled with
real nut cases in our religions that are
causing a lot of problems for those of
us who actually get a lot out of
religion and enjoy religion and
hopefully it keeps us in some kind of a
balance but we have a real problem and
to deny that problem I think is to deny
what I call the negative externalities
of religion if this is an economic term
you have externalities a corporation
sets up a factory they begin to pollute
the river and it goes downstream and
then you get
babies with problems down the road the
negative externalities of religion are
those toxic side effects of religion
that we don't really like to deal with
just like the corporation's don't like
to deal with the negative externalities
that they produce because they want to
say no our primary product is building
tires or lighting your houses with
nuclear energy oh sorry that we had a
meltdown and you're all really sick now
we didn't intend it like collateral
damage the difference between us and
them is we don't intend to harm anybody
even though we end up harming people and
so I think one of the things that we as
religious and committed religious people
do is we tend to deny the negative
externalities of our traditions that has
nothing to do with me that's not my
religion but those people within these
religious families that are using our
traditions they're using the books that
we use they're using the words that we
read and they are deriving very
different understandings but often
understandable because of the nature of
a lot of the pre-modern language that
exists in these texts and within the
Orthodox tradition you had a profound
weight of understanding that had to be
carried before you were allowed to
interpret these texts all you have to
read is st. Augusta non Christian
doctrine it's a very powerful argument
for a serious training in grammar before
you try to interpret the Bible right
because if you don't know what a
conditional sentence is you can get in a
lot of trouble reading the Bible if you
don't know that there are clauses that
restrict meanings if you don't know that
there are general terms that are
sometimes meant to be specific I'll give
you an example in Arabic rhetoric there
is a something that is it's it's like a
cynic doke you use the whole of
something - or a metonymy rather you use
the whole of something to indicate a
part so
for instance there's a verse in the
Quran that says audited you who do yet
ilahe medulla the jews say that the hand
of god is restricted in other words
god's a miser the jews don't say that
one jew said that at the time of the
prophet and yet when arabs now who have
not studied arabic rhetoric read that
verse they think all jews say that and
this is a problem that if you don't
understand language it's very dangerous
to read what you think god is saying
like the teacher who one of his students
was reading a book he said you're not
ready for that book he said I promise
I'll only take from it what I understand
he said that's not what I'm afraid of
I'm afraid of you taking what you think
you understand because this is what
happens so so often in our tradition so
we have a real serious problem with the
negative externalities of religion and
my argument is that religion now is in
so many places causing so much harm and
the secularists who really many of them
hate religion are using these examples
to say you know what we need to get rid
of this thing and so sam harris becomes
a hero despite the fact if you actually
read his book the end of faith he's
calling for a pre-emptive nuclear strike
on muslims that this might be necessary
to save ourselves i mean this is the
type of insanity that we've fallen into
because we have also fundamentalist
secularists that are often as dangerous
in their ideas and ideologies as
so-called fundamentalist religious
people's you know we live in a very
dangerous world because the tools that
we now have have far outstripped our
ethical nature the ability to use those
tools for our benefit and we can now see
very clearly that we're capable of
destroying massive numbers of people
we've got nuclear proliferation we've
got all of this technology that we don't
even understand really it's it's higher
magic we don't understand so we have we
have real problems and and I think as
religious people and committed religious
people we need
really think seriously about what went
wrong what went wrong this is something
that I grapple with every day because
when I read about these reports in
Muslim countries about what's going on
and I recognize that a lot of these
people actually believe that they're
doing something in the name of God and
we all know how heinous things can be
done when they're done in the name of
God right
it takes evil people to do evil but good
people they need religion to do evil
right I mean that that's what happens so
my feeling right now is the only way
that we're going to get out of this
incredible mess that we're in
religiously speaking is we need the
Judaism of Rabbi Hillel it's not going
to work otherwise we can't have any
other version we need the Judaism that
says when the non Jew asks what is the
Torah I want to study the Torah and he's
told what you don't want done to
yourself don't do to your neighbor
that's the whole Torah
now go and study that's it if you don't
get that you don't get anything and that
is also true of our own tradition we
need the islam of imam al-ghazali we
need the islamic for Dino Rossi who said
all of Islam can be reduced to two
statements both of these men two of the
greatest theologians in the history of
our tradition said all of Islam can be
reduced to two statements serving and
loving the creator and serving and
loving his creation serving and loving
the creator and serving and loving his
creation we need the christianity of st.
Francis Assisi I'm amazed that the
Christians are here with all these hate
signs towards Muslims that I'm wondering
well people haven't read their books and
when they read them they often
misunderstand them but I'm just
wondering about love your enemies what
that meant I really wonder about that
and Kierkegaard said the problem with
Christianity is the only Christian in
all of Christendom was Jesus
so it is a problem we have real problems
these religions become they're like
nuclear energy they have massive power
they they're a relatively clean energy
if used with the right constraints and
in the proper system and they can
illuminate houses but they also have
toxic side effects and if we don't learn
to deal with the toxic waste how do we
denude that toxic waste there's actually
scientists working on that right now
with nuclear energy trying to figure out
how they can stop the toxicity of that
waste how do we neutralize or at least
mitigate the toxic waste of our
religions how do we do that that's a
question and I don't have the answer but
I know that those great men and women
also of the tradition robbed yet that we
introduced love into Islamic piety a
woman in the fourth century introduced
love into Islamic piety because
everybody was obsessed with fear and she
said I don't worship God out of fear of
the fire I worship God because I'm in
love with God and and she really
introduced that so we have a lot of work
Metheny tikkun olam olam is the the
hebrew i get a lot of hebrew words
because of the arabic o nam we say adam
adam in the arabic language which means
world is is called in in the arabic
grammatical system a noun of instrument
the form file is is is the noun of
instrument it's it's the noun that you
use to describe an instrument to do what
the root of the word means so in arabic
is the noun of instrument for knowledge
the world is the instrument of knowledge
and according to the quran what is to be
known is our lord
Febby ayah arabic america the man thank
you very much and doctor
Rabbi Lerner you know I consider a
courageous man he he he takes a lot of
heat and but I mean that's that's really
what religious people are supposed to be
doing it's it's it's it's the ones that
are generating the heat there are all
the problems but the ones that are
trying to cool down the flames are the
ones that take the heat and and so you
know I I appreciate that and I'll just
because a poem was recited earlier a
poem that I always want to write get
things like this is a poem that I'm
reminded of which is is Robert Frost
wrote a poem called the fear of God and
he said if you should rise from some but
from nowhere up to somewhere from being
nobody up to being somebody be sure to
keep repeating to yourself you owe it to
an arbitrary God whose mercy to you
rather than to others won't bear to
critical examination if for lack of
license to wear the uniform of who you
are you should be tempted to make up for
it in a subordinating look or tone
beware of