MEDITATION TIPS (Episode 290)
5th Sunday in Ordinary Time
February 8, 2026

“The Lord says: ‘This is the fast I choose: to share your bread with the hungry, to bring the homeless poor into your house, to clothe the naked when you see them, and not to turn away from your own kin’.” (Isaiah 58:7)

　The fasting described in Scripture is fundamentally a religious act. People fasted before making major decisions or when seeking God’s will. Jesus also fasted while seeking His Father’s will. Yet Jesus never commanded His disciples to fast. Because fasting is a religious act, it must be directly connected to love for God and for others. Yet fasting easily falls into formalism, which is why Isaiah denounced those who fasted while continuing to fight.

　There was a philosopher named Emmanuel Levinas. He was a Lithuanian-born Jew who spent four years in a German prisoner-of-war camp during World War II. After surviving and returning, he first learned of the Holocaust against the Jews. The core of his philosophy is the “face.” While the face generally evokes images of a person’s appearance or personality, Levinas sought its meaning in the silent plea: “Do not kill me.” He argued that when one sees a person’s face, the unspoken words being conveyed are “Do not kill me,” and this is an absolute command.

　Through his “Philosophy of the Face,” he rejected totalitarianism. Totalitarianism is a political system that denies individual freedom and the autonomy of social groups, controlling individual rights and freedoms to align them with the interests of the state as a whole. Levinas argued that while a person’s face can change infinitely, it constantly appeals to us, constantly speaks to us. That eternal appeal is “Do not kill me,” and once we sense that appeal, we must respond. That response is to bear responsibility for the other. Therefore, Levinas states, “It is the face that speaks, in the sense that it makes all discourse possible and initiates it.”

　Why could the Nazis mass murder Jews, fellow human beings? Because they treated each individual not as a human being, but as mere objects. Thus, war, as Levinas says, is a state where one does not see the face of each individual, does not respond to the appeal, and does not bear responsibility. Levinas developed his “philosophy of the face” from the Holocaust of the Jews. It is profoundly regrettable that Israel, which experienced that Holocaust, invaded Gaza and took the lives of many Palestinians. The faces of Palestinian elders and children silently cry out, “Do not kill me.” Isaiah’s prophecy should be directed precisely at Israel today.

　It is said that what grows and develops rapidly will also perish rapidly. While modern communication tools now allow us to interact without meeting face-to-face, but the flaws in this approach are beginning to show. A true encounter with Christ is possible only by meeting people directly, conversing while looking into the face of someone who is appealing to us. This may sometimes require time and effort, but it is the most reliable path.

 　　　　　(Contributed by Father Yutaka Akabae)