Suspicious of people who make

promises they do not keep, the French essayist Alfred de Musset wrote,

"It is easy to promise, and alas! how easy to forget!"

As much as I like to think of myself as a man of my word, I shudder to

think of the many promises I have made to myself and others through the

years, promises that forgetfulness or any number of thin excuses have

broken. From "I promise to get it to you next week" to "Lord,

forgive me, I'll never do it again!" my personal litany of unfulfilled

assurances is endless.

I suspect that is why I have long had a fascination and respect for the

promise made by the residents of Oberammergau, a picturesque German village

nestled at the foot of the Bavarian Alps. For the past 366 years, these

devoutly religious folks have kept a promise made by their ancestors to

God. In the midst of a devastating plague in 1632, villagers vowed that,

should they be shielded from the pestilence, they would regularly act

out the Passion of Jesus Christ as a way to celebrate His divinity.

Historical records show that the epidemic was killing one of every ten

Oberammergau citizens. Once the promise was made, not one villager fell

victim. The first performance of the Passion Play took place in the spring

of 1634, and the drama has been mounted approximately every ten years

since. A few additional performances make this year's presentation the

40th full-scale production. This year, 2000 people, about half the village

of 5300, will participate one way or another.

As one of the hundreds of thousands of tourists who will make the trek

into the Bavarian hills to see this amazing spectacle, I have been monitoring

recent news reports regarding the play's continuing issues with anti-Semitism.

Understandably such accusations have increasingly soured the play's reception.

In the past, Jews were presented in "horned" costumes, and the

end of Judaism was predicted as a punishment for denying Jesus. During

the Second Vatican Council, however, the Church began to examine ancient

prejudices about the collective guilt of the Jewish people and a divine

curse upon Jewish blood, and a new understanding gradually emerged. Pope

John Paul II has made the scourge of anti-Semitism the centerpiece of

his Jubilee Year plea for forgiveness and reconciliation.

But, after years of serious attempts to purge the world's most famous

Passion Play of anti-Jewish passages, the play remains troubling for Jews

and Christians alike. So the present generation of villagers has taken

a new look at these elements and radically revised the script.

Jesus is now portrayed as a Hebrew-speaking Jew and is called "Rabbi'

rituals such as the Seder meal. In the scenes where the crowd calls for

Jesus' crucifixion, one group of actors counters their shouts with a cry

not to crucify Jesus, in order to suggest that not all Jews were against

Him.

Many Christians and Jews still see serious problems, yet these modest

but critical changes are a start. Perhaps one day, that centuries-old

vow will help obliterate the scourge of religious intolerance, particularly

anti-Semitismthe most infamous plague of our 20th century. It would be

a promise worth keeping.

For a free copy of the Christopher

News Note, TOLERANCE, write to The Christophers, 12 East 48th Street,

New York, NY 10017

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