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Tuesday, 22 Mar 2022

Mourning for Rabbi Ben Chorin

Tovia Ben-Chorin

Tovia Ben Chorin (1936-2022) was perfect for a project like the House of One. We remember how we met him for the first time in 2011, in the office of Lala Süßkind, then president of the Jewish Community of Berlin, and he immediately agreed to participate in such an idea, especially in Berlin, this, as he put it, "city of wounds and miracles.

Especially here, especially in view of the history of this city, to dare an interreligious project that is dedicated to understanding between the religions and thereby seeks the paths not yet trodden - this idea appealed to Tovia. And what a master he was at winning people over to the idea, a master of words, a master of conversation, with a never-ceasing curiosity about his counterpart and in a never-ceasing friendliness and cheerfulness that was so quickly contagious.

 

 "I love the atheists"

 

Two things were particularly close to his heart with the House of One: the continuation and realization of the Jewish teaching house idea. The House of One was to be a house of prayer and teaching. Meeting other persons with empathy, wanting to get to know them, not pushing them aside in the knowledge that "in every soul the divine spark is hidden". "Teaching" was precisely this empathic getting to know of the divine spark in the other person, in other religions and cultures. This is how the House of One was to grow as a teaching house, and Tovia has contributed incredibly much to taking everyone, really everyone, children, youth and adults on this divine spark quest and thereby shaping them.

 Tovia, and this is the second, has never been pious in a narrow way. He was incredibly open, very funny and thoughtful, no matter whether he was present as a rabbi of the House of One during a conversation with the Bundesliga professional of Hertha BSC or as our friend and colleague took an immediate interest in our ups and downs in life - and that even when he was already rabbi in St. Gallen. This is how he lived and understood his faith: "I am a believer who wrestles with God, like Jacob in the night, and is attacked by a figure and wrestles with this figure and is injured, he limps afterwards. I also limp in my faith. I love the atheists because they really wrestle with God. The ones who are so sure, I have my doubts sometimes."

 
Vision for the House of One


Perhaps this is the deepest reason for Tovia's connection with the House of One, that the largest room of the building is also dedicated to the limping, the atheist and the doubting, and thus a religious life will move into the whole house, which, precisely because it visualizes and lives its own religious traditions, develops and practices a special sensitivity for the believing limpers, the atheists and doubters. To strengthen each other in such empathy and to live in the awareness and attitude that, as Tovia wrote in 2012, "there can be no truth based on the denial of the right to exist of the truth of the other" - this vision for the House of One will endure and we will write it into the further history of the House of One in lasting memory and great gratitude for the path we were allowed to walk together with Tovia.

On behalf of everyone at the House of One Foundation


Roland Stolte (Chairman of the Administrative Board) and Imam Kadir Sanci (Chairman of the Foundation Board)

 

 

Funeral in Jerusalem via Livestream

 

Tovia Ben Chorin will be buried in Jerusalem on Sunday, March 27, 2022 at 3 pm (4 pm Israel time).

For the funeral service, it is requested to refrain from flowers and to donate instead for the Israeli partner project of the House of One, the Garden of One. If you want to donate please click here: donation campaign in the name of Tovia Ben Chorin.

The initiator of the peace project is Golan Ben Chorin, one of the two sons of Tovia Ben Chorin.

 

The funeral will be streamed live:

 

 

 

 

In the following video from 2014, Tovia Ben Chorin shares his enthusiasm for the House of One:

 

 

 

 

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