Dear Friends,
Please join us on Tuesday evening, November 21st, at 6:30pm, for a special gathering. So many in the world value and wish to practice peace, but its often a struggle to understand how to find it. This is an evening dialogue to explore:
Encouraging Tolerance, The Practice of Giving Space
Hosted by Hubertus Hoffman, Yvonne Hoffman, Eddie Stern, and the Broome Street Ganesha Temple. Featuring
leaders and guests from the NYC religious and spiritual communities.
Broome Street Ganesha Temple, 430 Broome Street, NYC, NY 10013
November 21st, 2023, 6:30pm-9pm
There is a vital need for religious and spiritual communities—who together are centered in practices of peace, faith, devotion, and service—to strengthen our ties with each other in order to counter divisiveness, and model tolerance in an increasingly polarized world.
The word tolerance has several definitions; it can mean to bear, endure, or put up with. It can mean to allow something to exist but that you do not necessarily agree with, or the ability to manage pain or hardship.
However, there is another meaning of the word tolerance,
one which we will explore during this evening, and that is of “giving space.” To practice tolerance in a spiritual, religious, or humanistic milieu means to give space to diverse beliefs, viewpoints, and cosmologies to exist, to be, and to thrive.
The practice of tolerance has within it an innate call to action as well. When people,
animals, and the planet are treated with intolerance, oppression, or violence, our personal tenets of tolerance must call us forth to practice acts of compassion, and sometimes even risk, in order to shelter and protect; a literal giving of space.
During the course of this evening, Hubertus and Yvonne Hoffman will speak on their
vision of tolerance and will present to the Ganesha Temple the Globe of Tolerance, a symbol of universal togetherness that graces several vital religious institutions around the world, thus connecting Manhattan’s Ganesha temple to a world wide web of communities who hold tolerance as a foundational principle of their religions and spiritual belief systems.
The evening will end with light snacks and time for the participants and guests to meet each other and foster bonds within the NYC ecosystem of religious and devotionally based organizations.
This is a free event, and was organized in mid-September, weeks before the Israeli/Hamas was broke out in Gaza, and has
not been organized as a response to this war, but as an action to address intolerance that has been a constant source of violence for thousands of years.
Please respond to this email with any questions you might have.
Best,
Eddie
The Globe of Tolerance
