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Editorial
The Editors

The crying need for justice among nations, within nations and between individuals resounds loudly in today's world. We hear the cry of our earth for respect and reverence and sense the desperate need of love between persons, in families and communities if the wave of crime, violence and alienation that besets society at the end of the twentieth century is to be overcome. As believers we look for solutions powerful enough to energize the world's peoples in order that the revolutionary changes in life-style, necessary to change the evil in our midst, may be embraced.
In their helplessness, Jews and Christians turn to the Living God, Creator, Redeemer, Merciful and Longsuffering from generation to generation. Faith in such a God reveals existence as grounded, not in a collection of atoms, but in the compassionate love of God suffering with and for humanity.
The concept of Benediction as it has been understood and lived in Jewish life reveals a theology and an anthropology that evokes awe and wonder at the mystery that animates all things and an overwhelming thankfulness for the Good so freely bestowed on the world. It inspires reverence for creation, a reciprocal sharing of possessions and a readiness to serve others. As Herbert Loewe wrote, in the sombre darkness of a Europe under Nazi domination:
The Benediction expresses the source of blessing, the blessing itself and the result of blessing. These three constitute a kind of unity "a triple cord" that cannot easily be broken.
Carmine Di Sante emphasizes the same point and shows how the Jewish notion of Benediction can enrich Christian life. Rather than bless the gifts of God it praises the Principle of Goodness they reveal. Recognizing that they are received gratuitously we are called to share them.
Starting from the recently published Book of Blessings, Lawrence Frizzell shows how the Church has received and developed this inheritance from Judaism. She is attempting to revitalize it today. Perhaps this issue of SIDIC can contribute to this endeavour. The outcome could be the realization that:
Just to be is a blessing Just to live is holy (Abraham Heschel)