Letters September 16, 2013 ISSUE

Letters

Yvonne Renoult, Sarah Putney

Prayer for women (and men)

Thank you to Paul Dixon for bringing to our attention the need to prayerfully support the women of Afghanistan (“Purifying our image of womanhood,” Sentinel, August 12, 2013). It’s so helpful to hear how he is praying to see them in their true spiritual light.

I have been troubled about the oppression of women in many parts of the world. This article helps one feel united in an effort to see womanhood as a spiritual idea and not as a cursed condition in matter. Dixon’s lovely description of the women’s devotion to their families and their obvious quiet strength gives one hope that the power of goodness will ultimately prevail.

It is especially meaningful that a man wrote this article. It’s a demonstration of the qualities of true manhood, such as sensitive concern and the recognition of true worth.

How grateful I am for Mary Baker Eddy’s example of thwarting all the restrictions on womanhood in her day that would have prevented her from being a leader in bringing to us the glorious truth we have to use on behalf of the women (and men) of the world.

As Dixon pointed out, it is so important to remember in our prayers that men also have the right to freedom from any societal demands on them to participate in oppression.

Thank you for articles such as these that point out the importance of praying about the “sins of the world” in addition to our own personal problems, illnesses, and concerns.

Yvonne Renoult
San Francisco, California, US

Correction needed

I am writing to point out an unfortunate factual error in the July 1, 2013, Sentinel, in the testimonial by Bob Fry. Mr. Fry attributes Shema Yisrael to the Torah as its first two words. This is quite wrong. The Torah’s first two words are the first two words of Genesis 1:1. Shema Yisrael are the first two words of the prayer, the Shema, which is one of the most important prayers in Judaism and can be found at Deuteronomy 6:4–9. 

The Torah can be defined in various ways, but at a technical minimum, it consists of the five books of Moses, of which Genesis is the first. No matter how you define the Torah, the first two words are the first two words of Genesis. In Hebrew, these are Bereshit bara, which have been translated as “When God began to create” and “In the beginning God created.”

Sarah Putney
Atlanta, Georgia, US

Editor’s note

Thank you, Sarah, for pointing this out. Our sincere apologies. It was not the author’s mistake, but ours. We misunderstood from research that these were the first two words of the Torah when they are actually the first two words of “a section of the Torah.” 

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September 16, 2013
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