ABSTRACT
I will continue in the style of children’s books in which the reader is invited to take the story on in his/her own way and then create an ending:
In relation to the story I’d like to pose the following questions which I will attempt to address in this paper:
As the voice of one of the world’s great civilisations, the Jewish voice has a place in the conversation of mankind. Amongst others it tells its own story of faith, culture, history and heritage; tradition, identity and effectiveness; justice, rights and responsibility. This civilisation could be described as ‘aboriginal’ in its authenticity. It provides the framework within which Jewish life is lived. It creates a faith norm. However, because Judaism has within it different plural ways of relating to and implementing this norm, tensions exist and strategies for problemsolving constantly need to be created, some of which are more successful than others. Thus within Judaism itself lie the seeds of both the conflictual and the dialogic. It is not the purpose of this paper to focus on the tensions internal to Judaism. However, the importance of drawing attention to them here is to highlight this dynamic as one with which Jews are familiar when interacting with people who have different attitudes, orientations and forms of lived practice.
