Meeting at the UK House of Lords, 2002
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Meeting at the UK House of Lords, 2002 |
Eliyahu McLean's background serves him well as a bridge between warring nations. His mother is a Jew from Brooklyn; his father, a Christian, the son of a Baptist priest.
His parents, flower-children of the 1960s, met in California. They raised McLean in Sant Mat, a mystical branch of Sikhism on the Hawaiian Island, Oahu. Then, his first name was Olan, akin to the Norse god, Olaf. They gave their son the Punjabi middle name, 'Charanamarit', meaning 'the pool of nectar at the feet of the Lord'.
"I began searching for my own spiritual identity from a very early age. I could connect with the universal teachings of Sant Mat but I wanted a connection with my own heritage.
"I enrolled in a Japanese-language Cultural School, but I realized very soon that I was not Japanese.
"When I was twelve, I discovered Judaism when I went to a friend's bar mitzvah in a Reform Temple. The moment I walked into the synagogue, something resounded deep within me, and I knew I'd come home. I made every effort to learn enough Hebrew so that I, too, could be called up to read from the Torah.
"My mother's father, Oscar, flew in from New York for my bar mitzvah and bestowed upon me the most precious gift, my Hebrew name, Eliyahu."