Reb Arthur's Latest Thoughts

At Elat Chayyim/ Isabella Freedman retreat center in the Berkshire hills in Falls Village, Connecticut, from Wednesday evening September 8 to Sunday noontime September 12 there will be a retreat for Rosh Hashanah and Shabbat Shuvah. From September 17 to 19, there will be a retreat for Yom Kippur.

Both retreats will be led by Rabbis Phyllis Berman, Arthur Waskow, & Shawn Zevit, and Simcha Zevit.

Rabbi Shawn and Simcha are remarkable singers and cantors, and will bring sweet, deep music into the hearts and souls of the community.

Rabbi Phyllis will lead meditative chanting services for Shabbat and several spiritual exercises for helping us achieve tshuvah ("turning" or repentance) and slichah (forgiveness).

I will lead Torah study in ways that open the heart and mind to the wonders of Creation and the possibilities of reconciliation between humanity and Earth, and among the different families of Abraham.

The Shalom Center is a co-sponsor of this retreat. So any of us who are connected with The Shalom Center will receive a 20% discount on the cost of room and board by entering a special code when registering.

This 20% discount comes on top of a 10% early-bird discount if you register by August 19.

Register by clicking here. or by calling 1800/398-2630, ext 4. On the next-to-last page of registration, type in the "discount code" as follows to receive the 20% Shalom Center discount: SCRH10.

What's more, each Shalom Center registrant beyond the first fifteen will bring to The Shalom Center a $50 donation from Isabella Freedman. A painless -- indeed a joyful! -- way to help support The Shalom Center's work for peace, justice, and healing.   Read more »

Comments

2 comments posted
CNN Apperance

Rabbi Waskow,

I just wanted to le you know how moved I was by your message on CNN. In today’s volatile atmosphere, your simple message of acceptance, understanding and brotherhood is refreshing. America and the world needs more leaders both spiritual and secular who share your views. Indeed the world would be a much better place.

Thank you,

Paul P Tosi

Posted by Paul P Tosi (not verified) on 8/3/2010
Spare me your progressive

Spare me your progressive naivete. What this country needs more than ever is a return to its Judeo-Christian beliefs that made this country great and this includes and abandonment of progressive thoughts that have plagued this country over the last 50 years.

Posted by MVV (not verified) on 8/28/2010


Get Dirty Fuels out of our Air & Water;
Get Dirty Money out of our Politics

At noon on Tuesday, July 20, there will be an interfaith gathering for lament, hope, and action on behalf of Mother Earth at Upper Senate Park on the Senate side of the United States Capitol in Washington.

Our basic demands: "Dirty Fuels Out of our Planet's Air & Water"; "Dirty Money Out of our Politics."

The date was chosen twice: a number of progressive and environmentalist organizations chose it because it is the third "monthiversary" of the Gulf oil blow-out, and in some providential or coincidental way, it is also Tisha B'Av, the traditional day for Jews to lament the Destruction of the Temples in Jerusalem 2000 and 2500 years ago -- and according to rabbinic teaching, the day when Mashiach (Messiah) was born. A moment when the wail of lament and the hopeful wailing of the newborn come together.

Today the sacred Temple of all peoples, all life-forms is the Earth itself.

The Shalom Center, working closely with Shomrei Adamah of Greater Washington, initiated the Jewish aspect of this effort, which has been endorsed and co-sponsored by Am Kolel and other Washington-area congregations and groups. The framework we will use (with modifications) for the vigil/ interfaith service/ action is a liturgy you can see on our Website here.

.Please let us know who and how many are coming from your community to Upper Senate Park by writing to us at LamentandHope@gmail.com, which is the email for Vinny Prell, staff coordinator for this effort. If you are planning to use or draw on this framework for your own event in your own region, either as a stand-alone event or integrated into your observance of Tisha B'Av, please let us know at Office@shalomctr.org

We will gather at a moment when the Senate will be struggling over whether or how to control the over-burning of fossil fuel that is bringing on climate crisis and endangering the web of life on Planet Earth.

We will mourn what is being destroyed and then move from grief to hope, from hope to action.

We will lament the disasters that we face, using the ancient wailing chant of Lamentations that Jews have used for millennia to mourn the destruction of the ancient temples in Jerusalem. cultures, all communities of faith and ethical commitment.

And then we will move from grief to hope. The very knowledge that disaster threatens our planet as a whole bears within it the seed of planetary community. We will sing the songs, chant the chants, recite together the Psalms that celebrate our great round home––the only home our human race can live in.

And we will call for action. We will face the Senate and call on them to take steps to heal our planet from the climate crisis we already live in -- and weave together the wonderfully varied, multicolored strands of human cultures and communities in this great effort that we can only do together.

We invite you to join in this interfaith affirmation––to pray not only with our voices but also with our arms and legs, as Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel once taught could be real prayer.

During mid-July, the United States Senate will be struggling over whether to pass a bill to take the first baby steps toward capping emissions of heat trapping gases, toward ending our addiction to burning fossil fuels beyond what our planet can absorb, toward ending our subjugation to the drug lords of this addiction -- Big Oil, Big Coal.

The corporate drug lords will be bringing all the money and pressure that they can, to bear upon the Senate. So we need to bring the bodies, minds, hearts, spirits of the people.

We will join our voices to the grief voiced by the Earth in places like the Gulf Coast, amid the oil-soaked deaths of pelicans and the fisherfolk way of life; the West Virginia mountains, demolished in the search for coal; the Amazon forest, burned for a few years worth of producing hamburger; the glaciers melting amidst the shattered lives of polar bears, penguins, and the Inuit; the stricken fields of Central Africa, where drought has triggered starvation, civil war, and genocide.

Yet even these are only precursors to the deadly scorching of our entire planet.

May the Unity we sense in the world, the Unity we seek in the world, bring us together in sacred unity through all our sacred diversities of life-forms and communities.
^^^^^^^
For books on eco-Judaism and eco-spirituality by Rabbi Arthur Waskow: Godwrestling — Round 2; Down-to-Earth Judaism; and Torah of the Earth -- click here for "Shouk Shalom,” our on-line bookstore.    Read more »

Grief, Hope, Action: Tisha B'Av for the Earth

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow | 6/9/2010

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"It's an infusion of oil and gas unlike anything else that has ever been seen anywhere, certainly in human history," said Samantha Joye of the University of Georgia, the expedition leader. [NY Times June 9, 2010.]

For two brief video teachings that move from lamentation to hope -- how to connect the ancient wisdom of Judaism to active change -- see YouTube here. and here.

What can we do to prevent this disaster in the Gulf from becoming a model of disaster for all Earth?

My heart is drawn to the day Jews mourn the destruction of the ancient Temples in Jerusalem -- and after a day of grief, according to the ancient rabbis, are able to welcome the first stirrings of the birthing of Messiah, on that same disastrous day.

The day is called Tisha B'Av: the ninth day of the midsummer month of Av. On that day, Jews have traditionally chanted in a special mournful melody the Book of Lamentations --- in Hebrew named Eicha, for its opening word: "How lonely ... sits the city, once full of life, now desolate."

I want to suggest drawing on ancient midrash and our own good sense to see Tisha B'Av this summer as a framework for grief, vision, and action in regard to our Earth. First we will cite the ancient midrash, and then [see blue passages below] suggest some kinds of actions we might take.   Read more »

This morning (Monday, Memorial Day, May 31, 2010), I awoke to news reports that the Israeli Navy had boarded and fired on ten small ships, bearing civilians from many countries, in international waters approaching the coast of Gaza, carrying humanitarian supplies for Palestinians who have been suffering an Israeli blockade of many (not all) civilian goods. [Tuesday, June 1: Please be sure to read the Follow-up Letter that we sent out this morning. It is posted in the "Comments" section at the end of this letter, reached by clicking on the "Read more"note.]

Some of the civilians aboard had been killed.

The Flotilla refused demands they dock at an Israeli port, because their journey was in part humanitarian in the narrow sense, and in part demanded that the blockade be ended and the Palestinians treated as a People worthy of respect and direct relationship, not mere mendicants hungry for a handout. That respect is what the Israeli government refused — and has refused for years.

This killing of international civilians in ships on the high seas must become a lightning flash illuminating the deepest dangers of leaving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict unresolved. As much a lightning flash of world danger arising in the Middle East as the Oil Disaster in the Gulf has become a lightning-flash illuminating the world-wide need to control the power and greed of Big Oil.

Only we can make this lightning flash in the Mediterranean into growing illumination and enlightenment, not just a passing glare.

So we must make it that.

Close to the end of this letter, you will see (in several bold blue paragraphs) an action I urge you to take in memory of these dead and in determination to prevent more deaths. Please take the ten minutes to do this. Whatever else you are doing for Memorial Day, please see this time as devoted to its deepest meaning: remembering the dead of war and striving to prevent more deaths.

Present reports indicate that between nine and fifteen people aboard these ships seem to have been killed, and dozens wounded. The people aboard included citizens of fifty different nations -- Ireland, the US, Britain, Turkey, France, many others. Some were members of their country's parliament; others, physicians, nurses, political activists. One Nobel Peace laureate.

The Israeli navy claims that as they boarded the ships to force them to turn toward Ashdod, an Israeli port, some of the civilians aboard lifted sticks or grabbed at Israeli weapons to stop them -- and they fired in response. Maybe. Maybe not. In any case, the crisis goes far deeper than what happened in those last moments .

We at The Shalom Center have been trying to focus on the deadly danger that the Climate Crisis and the top-down, pyramidal, unresponsive, irresponsible power of Big Oil and Big Coal are thrusting upon our children and grandchildren, upon America (N.B. the Gulf Disaster), upon our planet. As Jews, we know from Pharaohs and the Plagues they bring upon us - and these are modern Pharaohs.

BUT even as the Gulf disaster worsened, -- last weekend I watched with dread the approach of a Mediterranean disaster. I watched the Israeli government's rigid response to the approach of the flotilla. The Netanyahu government has increasingly seen only violence as an adequate tool for security -- evicting Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem, breaking up demonstrations by Israelis and others to defend those homes, preventing Noam Chomsky from speaking at a university in the West Bank. Even inciting "mere" violent words by obsessive supporters of Israeli government policy like Alan Dershowitz which themselves incited events like the attack on Rabbi Michael Lerner's home.

Out of my dread of a disaster --- and out of my fear that the Israeli government was bringing and would bring utter shame upon the Jewish people, was poisoning the bloodstream of Torah that every rabbi has a sacred obligation to defend -- I felt we need to act as the ships approached Gaza.

So I asked all our readers to write Israeli embassies and consulates in the US and Secretary of State Clinton to implore Israel to lift the blockade and let the ships land in Gaza.

Some of our readers and members did, and also wrote to thank me. Many are on much-needed restful long-weekend Memorial Day vacations and may never have even seen my letter. Some wrote berating me that since I don't live in Israel, I could not understand how Israelis feel and can't understand even that there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza. But as I wrote yesterday, the Haaretz newspaper - which does live in Israel -- wrote in an editorial that --

"Moreover, the suffering that Israel is causing 1.5 million people for this purpose is not only inhuman, but extremely detrimental to Israel's status around the world."

"… Israel argues that there is no hunger in Gaza and that vital products enter the Strip regularly. Israel even said it was prepared to deliver the boats' contents to the Gaza Strip, but via Ashdod Port and using the Israel Defense Forces, not the boats directly.

"If so, this indicates that Israel is not opposed to the aid itself, but to the demonstration of support for Gaza's people. However, this show of support could have been prevented from the outset had Israel lifted the pointless blockade and allowed Gazans to live normal lives."

(Let us be clear: The insistence of the flotilla on landing in Gaza, not Ashdod, shows that they were intent not only on bringing medical supplies and desperately needed home-building materials to persons in Gaza, but on making direct contact with the People of Gaza -- seeing them as a People entitled to dignity and recognition. That is what Jewish and universal ethics call for, and that is what the Israeli government refuses to allow.)

Bottom line of the Haaretz editorial:
"The government has to decide right away to resume indirect talks with Hamas, to be more flexible about releasing prisoners and to lift the siege on Gaza."

As the very existence of that editorial itself shows, there is much that is valuable and decent and sensible in Israeli society. But its present government, which tries to drape itself in Jewish history and Jewish religion, is a disgrace to the Jewish people, an abomination to human ethics, and a danger to the peace of the whole world -- including the United States.

That government will not change on its own. Although Hamas has in the last year shown some readiness to change, after the events of this weekend it will be much harder for Hamas to change on its own.

Only the United States government has the power and the potential for commitment both to Israel's safety and to Palestine's freedom to bring about the crucial changes.

As General David Petraeus warned even before this horrifying incident, the close alliance between the US and the Israeli government sparks anger throughout the Arab and Muslim worlds not only against Israel but also against the US. In the wake of the killings of this past weekend, this rage will almost certainly increase - perhaps explosively.

So the US government's obligation to keep the American people safe from explosive violence throughout the Arab and Muslim worlds should lead it to insist on a regional peace settlement that affirms the legitimacy of Israel; frees the Palestinians of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem to create their own state living peacefully alongside Israel; and achieves peace and full recognition for and among Israel, Palestine, and all Arab states.

What does the word "insist" mean? It means that the US must use its power, not just jawbone. In a proposal I wrote two months ago, I sketched out how US power could be used with commitment, caring, and compassion. To see it, and if you choose sign it and endorse it, click here.

And meanwhile, what should American Jews be doing? We should denounce in the clearest terms this violent attack by the Israeli government on ships at sea and human beings of fifty different nations. We should grieve the dead killed by this attack just as we grieve Israeli dead killed by terrorists. We should quote Haaretz. We should call for US action, not just speeches.

I have taken the liberty - the chutzpah -- to draft a letter that I invite you to modify in your own words and send several crucial leaders of the American Jewish community. I am listing those leaders and their emails for you to send them something like this letter. (You can simply clip and paste it into your own email, modify it as you like, and send to their addresses.)

(Please note that in the follow-up letter shown in the comments below, I suggest also writing Members of Congress, Senators, and President Obama with the same message: To see the "draft model text" we have supplied, please click here. )

I hope you will add to our “draft model text” your own words and thoughts.

What follows now is the version we suggest you send the five Jewish leaders named below.

Dear [insert title and name],

I am writing in great urgency to ask you to take the following steps in the wake of the Israeli government's horrifying attack upon the flotilla of ships bearing humanitarian supplies to Gaza:

1. Call for all Jewish and other communities to mourn the deaths aboard these ships, as we grieve the deaths of Israeli civilians killed by others' violence.

2. Denounce the violation of Jewish values and worldwide human ethics involved in these killings on the high seas.

3. Publicly affirm the call of Haaretz, in its editorial of May 28, 2010: "The government has to decide right away to resume indirect talks with Hamas, to be more flexible about releasing prisoners and to lift the siege on Gaza"

4. Call for immediately ending the Israeli blockade of all civilian items from entering Gaza, while continuing inspections to prevent weapons themselves from entering.

5. Call for the US government to use all its diplomatic influence and economic power to bring about a regional peace conference in which the governments of Israel and all Arab states, and a Palestinian government of national unity, achieve a regional peace settlement that protects Israel, frees a peaceful Palestine, and calms the region while ending the rage now felt by many Arabs against the US.

With blessings of shalom, [your name and if you like, title & organization],

Here are the Jewish addresses we recommend and urge you to write.
You can of course add others whom you know.

Rabbi Steve Gutow, president of the Jewish Council on Public Affairs, at: sgutow@thejcpa.org

Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, at: dsaperstein@rac.org

Dr. Arnold Eisen, chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, at: areisen@jtsa.edu

Jeremy Ben-Ami, executive director of J Street, at: jeremy@jstreet.org

Debra DeLee, executive director of Americans for Peace Now, at: ddapn@earthlink.net

These letters will matter to those who receive them. Please take the time -- about two minutes each - to send them. Whatever else you are doing for Memorial Day, please see this time as devoted to its deepest meaning: remembering the dead of war and striving to prevent more deaths.

With blessings of shalom, salaam - Peace!
Arthur    Read more »

Comments

4 comments posted
Unarmed?

I am new to your website. The Memorial Day comments you wrote state that the ships were unarmed. By now, dear Rabbi, you surely must have had time to view the videos pervasively circulating on the internet that show the stockpiles of weapons discovered aboard what was allegedly a vessel on a humanitarian mission. Regardless of why, Israel boarded the vessel, the videos also clearly show savage attacks against the young Israeli soldiers. To me, the violence appears to have been initiated by those aboard the ship. To me, it seems that they could have behaved peacefully in their response to Israel’s actions.

My deepest grief in this moment is that in your beautiful, heartfelt efforts to work toward peace, you do not insist that the Palestinians and their supporters be asked to behave peacefully, ethically and responsibly. It is seems as though you are willing only to hold Israel accountable, giving free behaviorial reign to everyone else. I am sad that there is no invitation for readers to grieve for the injured soldiers and their families. If we are to act from a place of compassion and dedication to peaceful ideals, but we limit our actions and prayers to one side, how does that help in the vision of promoting oneness and connection? Shouldn’t our ideals be grounded in truth, impartiality and evenhandedness? If you perecieve that Israel behaves unfairly, and your response models unfairness and partiality, what is accomplished? What is being taught?

I ask you to at least modify your Memorial Day letter and acknowledge that when you first received the information you believed the vessels unarmed, but have since seen evidence that there were in fact weapons aboard. Please request that readers condemn that behavior along with asking for whatever other support your request. Blessings.

Posted by Lee S. (not verified) on 6/1/2010
Follow-up on Israeli navy attacks

Dear friends,

I am writing to follow up on our Memorial Day emergency letter about the horrifying deaths that resulted from the Israeli government's refusing even the previous pleas of the leading Israeli newspaper (Haaretz) to end the siege of Gaza and let the small ships bearing humanitarian supplies land there.

As information unfolded yesterday, the possibility grew that aboard the Marmora, lead vessel of the “Freedom Flotilla,” there may have been some hand-to-hand violence in resistance to the boarding of the ship by the Israeli Navy. The deeper question remains — why were the ships boarded at all? — all the more, why were they boarded on the high seas, in international waters?

It all goes back to the unwillingness of the present Israeli government to end the siege of Gaza, to accept the difficult burden of peacemaking and negotiation instead of the path of domination -- and (to a much lesser extent, because they are the far weaker party) the limited, stammering willingness of Hamas to undertake the same difficult burden. (Some Hamas leaders have said that if the Palestinian people voted in a plebiscite for a two-state peace, they would accept it.)

I have read criticisms of the Israeli government’s “stupidity.” But this is not stupidity born of a low IQ. It is the stupidity born of arrogance, as the US govt’s stupidity about Iraq was born of arrogance. Arrogance means not needing to listen to others. Not listening breeds stupidity.

I have also read criticisms in the name of Dr. Martin Luther King that the resistance aboard the Marmora was not “nonviolent.” First of all, let us be cautious: The only testimony about the Marmora comes from the Israeli govt; the on-board activists are still in jail, cut off from interviews. But EVEN if the tales of hand-to-hand resistance are true, let’s consider:

It is true that MLKing would not have approved the use of even hand-to-hand fighting in self-defense. But when some Blacks rioted in Los Angeles in 1965 against police violence, King called for a different path, but also never abandoned or condemned them. In fact, in his great Riverside Church speech on April 4, 1967, he used that very rioting to back up his saying that he could not criticize the use of violence by rioters and not speak out against the far greater violence being carried out by the US government.

So any of us might say — I do -- we wish the crew and activists aboard the Marmora had used nonviolence, disabled the ship if necessary to prevent its being towed by the Israeli navy, etc — but any of us who claim to speak in Dr. King’s name or the name of nonviolence must condemn the far greater violence used by the Government of Israel.

As a result, there are the dead to mourn, there is grief to bear, and work for us to do -- to prevent more deaths and achieve a decent peace. Work first --- and then a special Mourners Kaddish in Time of War and Violence:

Yesterday I suggested writing five leaders of the American Jewish community, urging them to take five steps.

Today I want to suggest you click here to write Members of Congress, Senators, and President Obama with the same message: http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/602/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=3945

I hope you will add to our “draft model text” your own words and thoughts.

You can also call the White House at 202/456-1111 to leave your comments.

If you want to see essays and statements collected by The Shalom Center over years of the Gaza-Sderot crisis, you can find them here: http://www.theshalomcenter.org/treasury/170

Finally, I encourage all religious, spiritual, and ethical communities to include in their prayers or contemplation this week the following prayer (just below) of mourning for those who have died in violence, terrorism, or war. It is rooted in the Jewish "Mourners' Kaddish," yet carries a universal wisdom. You can use it either with both Hebrew/ Aramaic and English, or in English alone.

Blessings of shalom, salaam, peace -- Arthur

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MOURNERS' KADDISH IN TIME OF WAR & VIOLENCE

Yitgadal V'yit'kadash Shmei Rabah

May Your Great Name, through our expanding awareness and our fuller action, lift You to become still higher and more holy.

For Your Great Name weaves together all the names of all the beings in the universe, among them our own names, and it is we who give You the strength to lift us into holiness -- (Cong: Amein)

B'alma di vra chi'rooteh v'yamlich malchuteh b'chayeichun, u'v'yomeichun, u'v'chayei d'chol beit yisrael, b'agalah u'vzman kariv, v'imru: -- Amein.

--- Throughout the world that You have offered us, a world of majestic peaceful order that gives life to the Godwrestling folk through time and through eternity ---- And let's say, Amein

Y'hei sh'mei rabbah, me'vorach, l'olam almei almaya.

So may the Great Name be blessed, through every Mystery and Mastery of every universe.

Yitbarach, v'yishtabach, v'yitpa'ar, v'yitromam, v'yitnasei, v'yit'hadar, v'yit'aleh, v'yit'halal -- Shmei di'kudshah, -- Brich hu, (Cong: Brich Hu)

May Your Name be blessed and celebrated, Its beauty honored and raised high, may It be lifted and carried, may Its radiance be praised in all Its Holiness --- Blessed be!

L'eylah min kol bir'chatah v'shir'atah tush'be'chatah v'nehematah, de'amiran be'alma, v'imru: Amein (Cong: Amein)

Even though we cannot give You enough blessing, enough song, enough praise, enough consolation to match what we wish to lay before you ---

And though we know that today there is no way to console You when among us some who bear Your Image in our being are slaughtering others who bear Your Image in our being -

Yehei Shlama Rabah min Shemaya v'chayyim aleinu v'al kol Yisrael, v'imru Amein.

Still we beseech that from the unity of Your Great Name flow a great and joyful harmony and life for us and for all who wrestle God; (Cong: Amein)

Oseh Shalom bi'm'romav, hu ya'aseh shalom aleinu v'al kol yisrael v'al kol yishmael v'al kol yoshvei tevel -- v'imru: Amein.

You Who make harmony in the ultimate reaches of the universe, teach us to make harmony within ourselves, among ourselves -- and peace for the children of Abraham through Hagar and Sarah -- the children of Israel and the children of Ishmael; and for all who dwell upon this planet. (Cong: Amein)

Posted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on 6/1/2010
impunity?

Arthur, this is a good start, but….where is the accountability? Why is there no call for an investigation, a call to justice? Your requests ask us to merely grieve and move on - and let Israel get away with these murders, in international waters?

Although the spirit is nice, I feel this letter serves mostly for “damage control,” without calling for any actual accountability by Israel. We do have laws, and it is right to call for their implementation. Otherwise, Israel will slip further into a rogue state.

Posted by Anonymous (not verified) on 6/1/2010
"Moving on/ Making peace"

Friend — Even when anonymous letters raise important questions, I dislike responding to anonymous letters; but in this case I will anyway.

This article itself calls for people to bring their power and energy to bear on the “movable part” of American jewish leadership to condemn these killings and the entire blockade pf Gaza and to insist in strong US action for peace.

As this letter itself also says, on Tuesday morning we intended to assist people to write their members of Congress to the same end. — and this morning, when I see your comment — we have already done so.

That seems to me to strike at the heart of the problem. It is the power maldistribution between Israel and Palestine, and the addiction to domination that rises from that imbalance to obsess Israeli leadership, that needs to be redressed — and only the US can do it. We have proposed before (a month ago) ways of doing that for real, and we will in the next several days again raise that possibility.

If “moving on” means “making peace,” that is indeed what I am trying to do.

Shalom, salaam peace — Arthur

Posted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on 6/1/2010

OYL! -- Corruption, the Spirit, the Earth, & Us

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow | 5/14/2010

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This is not an oil "spill" we are facing in the Gulf, the way water might spill from a dish or oil from a tanker -- a finite amount in the first place, and then we clean up.

This is more like piercing, penetrating, raping the deep-hidden places in the body of Mother Earth, a mile beneath the surface of the ocean, with such ultraviolence that Her very guts are pouring out, drenching and poisoning us.

But we can take this disaster as a teaching toward a Turning in our lives and action.
To that end, we will present some concrete proposals for action at the end of this essay.

But let us begin by assessing the depths of our distress.

Every morning brings us fresh outrageous news about BP's and Big Oil's obscenities in the Gulf oil eruption -- and the fawning of paid-for governmental toadies:

Using sex, drugs, and money to bribe officials in the first place to overlook unsafety -- so that for years, the Materials Management Service has allowed dozens of wells to be drilled into the Gulf without requiring the Oil companies to get the permits they were legally obligated to get.

Giving BP a pass to drill without even checking environmental standards, though BP was already guilty of hundreds of safety violations in other places and of deaths from its mismanagement of oil wells.

Lying about how much oil is pouring into the Gulf.

Keeping independent scientists from measuring it themselves.

Getting US government approval for new permits and bypassing environmental-impact assessments even weeks after the president announced there would be a moratorium on new permits (in the light of the BP blow-out).

The article that follows looks at four aspects of this disaster, and how to deal with it: (1) spiritual failings; (2) corrupt politics; (3) making policy choices; and (4)prayerful political action.


1. Spiritual Failings

First and most basic, there is a spiritual teaching of all traditions that the US government and global corporations have been systematically violating.

The gulf disaster is an issue of power and the Spirit, not technology. It is rooted in a spiritual disease. One passage of the Hebrew Scriptures -- Leviticus 25 and 26 -- and millennia of human experience describe this as refusing to let the earth have its Sabbath rest.   Read more »

Comments

1 comment posted
Lovely article! Very

Lovely article! Very informative and I appreciate the calls to action as well as the openness to reader suggestions. I look forward to spending more time studying your organization in the near future. Wishing you all the very best, Dave

Posted by Dave D (not verified) on 5/31/2010

GOD’S EARTH IS NOT FOR BURNING

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow | 5/4/2010

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The oil-well disaster on the Gulf Coast of the United States may seem utterly the product of modern technology. But there are many teachings in Torah about precisely the spiritual failings that give rise to such disasters. The Jewish community could now take those teachings far more seriously and act far more vigorously to prevent such disasters than it has so far.

Torah’s description of the earliest experience of the human race in the Garden of Eden affirms on the one hand that God has made overflowing bounty available to humanity in the earth’s abundance — and on the other, warns us not to gobble up all this abundance but to show self-restraint in what we eat. If we do gobble everything in sight, says the story, we lose the abundance: humanity must then toil with the sweat pouring down its face to wring barely enough to eat from an earth that grows mostly thorns and thistles.

Many other passages of tradition reinforce the lesson. Yet in our world today, the human race — led by giant corporations that try to wring every drop of abundance from the earth without any forethought for the future -- is bringing upon itself the disasters Torah warns against, through worship of the “afterthought gods (elohim acherim)" of greed and power.

The same voracious forces that sought to devour every drop of oil in the deepest levels of the Gulf have foiled strong Congressional action to reduce the voracious over-use of fossil fuels and with them, the emission of gases that heat the earth and bring on climate crisis -- drought, desertification, rising sea levels, the spread of tropical diseases into formerly temperate regions, the disruption of crops.

Only grass-roots energy can move Congress. So the Jewish community should unite in a campaign that calls out to ourselves and our leaders -- “GOD’S EARTH IS NOT FOR BURNING.”   Read more »

Comments

1 comment posted
Revelation

AND GOD SAIDYOU ARE DESTROYING MY GARDEN, MY WATER AND
MY CREATION. YOU WANT OIL, THAN I WILL GIVE YOU AN OCEAN OF
OIL. DO YOU THINK THAT THE OIL IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE OCEAN
WITH ALL THE BEAUTIFUL LIFE I CREATED. LET THE CREATURES OF THE OIL
SLEEP IN PEACE UNDER THE OCEAN FOR THAT IS WHERE THEY MUST BE. LEAVE THEM ALONE WHERE THEY HAVE BEEN FOR MILLIONS OF YEARS. WE
MUST KEEP THE LIVING AWAY FROM THE DEAD. THEY SHOULD NOT MIX JUST AS
OIL AND WATER DO NOT MIX, LIVING AND DEAD CREATURES SHOULD NOT MIX.
IT WILL ONLY BRING LIFE GRIEF. I TIRE OF HUMANITY BEING SO FOOLISH WITH
THEIR SACRED TECHNOLOGY AND FALSE GODS. HOW LONG SHALL I PUT UP WITH
THEM BEFORE I DIMINISH THEM OR THEY DIMINISH THEMSELVES. AS I ENDED THE
EXISTENCE OF GREAT PREDATORS 64 MILLION YEARS AGO THE EXISTENCE
OF HUMAN PREDATORS MAY END AS WELL. HUMANITY HAS THE POTENTIAL TO
BECOME BENEVOLENT, ALTRUISTIC, COMPASSIONATE CONSERVERS. I HAVE
GIVEN HUMANITY THE POWER OF CHOICE. WE SHALL SEE.”

Posted by Anonymous (not verified) on 5/16/2010

What makes the Arts "Prophetic"?

By Editor | 4/29/2010

On April 25, 2005, The Shalom Center honored Prophetic Voices in the Arts.

Arlene Goldbard, president of the Board of The Shalom Center and a community-arts activist, spoke briefly and powerfully on the value of the transformative arts in making a decent society. Her keynote is posted below.

Tony Kushner, Pulitzer prize-winning playwright of “Angels in America,” was interviewed by Ilana Trachtman, award-winning director of the film documentary “Praying with Lior.” We will post our videotape of the interview on line during the next days and let you know when it is available.

We also honored Rabbi Mordechai Liebling and Lynne Iser, especially for their work in shaping the family background of “Praying with Lior” and their work in carrying the film into the world of support for those with cognitive disabilities; and Cantor Jack Kessler, organizer of Atzilut, a musical ensemble made up of Jewish and Arab musicians who do Arab and Jewish music, in venues across America and Europe.

And we published a pamphlet on “The Prophetic Arts in Philadelphia” that reported the arts venues in the city that give special attention to justice, peace, and healing of the earth. We have posted that too, and will encourage the creation of such guides for other cities.

We arranged with the Wilma Theater –- a boldly innovative and experimental theater — and the Pew Theater Initiative — for Tony Kushner to teach a master class to young playwrights and actor in the city.

This is the text of Arlene Goldbard’s introduction:

Every Prophetic Voices event is a delight: it feels wonderful to honor people who have stood in our society for the awakening of conscience and possibility, especially when the daily news offers so much temptation to go back to sleep.

But I am especially thrilled to be here tonight because this year’s honors are very close to my mission in life, which is to shift our understanding of the public interest in art and culture from the margins to the center of our awareness, where it belongs. Tonight, we honor people who understand that the way we tell our stories—through theater, film, music and other forms—the way we tell our stories shapes our lives.

Making art is the essence of being human. We do it in marble palaces and grass huts, every time we mark the unfolding of our lives. Even under the worst possible conditions, in SuperMax prisons and concentration camps, people save precious crumbs or scrape up mud to make sculptures. They scratch on prison walls with rocks or bits of charcoal. Herbert Zipper led a clandestine orchestra in Dachau. Our ancestors gathered around campfires, huddling against the darkness to share stories of the hunt, the trek, the storm and their meanings. Today we sit in auditoriums, warming ourselves by the light of more complicated stories. But underneath, we are the same. Making stories, images, songs and structures is as essential to us as breathing.

Prophetic artists ask, “What stories need telling now?” They see that to survive the crisis in democracy, to achieve humane and sustainable community, we need the capacity to put ourselves in the other’s place and make choices driven by more than crude self-interest; and the social imagination to envisage new solutions to stubborn social problems. We need stories that draw the connections between public choices and actual human lives, stories that cultivate awareness and compassion.

Empathy and social imagination cannot be learned through intellect alone. Through film, theater, dance, music, literature, and visual art, through sharing our stories of resourcefulness and resilience, through sharing our own creativity, human beings have always learned to know and care for each other, to strengthen our communities and to face down challenges.

To my continuing frustration, while progressives often see art as nice but unnecessary to real democracy, the right sees artists clearly, as in possession of powerful skills of expression and communication, almost always in the service of freedom, equity, diversity and inclusion. The right understands that creativity and public purpose are a potent combination. They passionately want their story to predominate: that this country belongs to white Americans who think as they do, and that their ownership confers the right to exclude, discredit and scapegoat others by any means necessary.

Consequently, they are willing to do anything to disrupt the counter-narrative of art and public purpose. Racism and other forms of discrimination have clearly been one animating force behind right-wing scapegoating: most of their targets have been African American, or gay, or belonged to other vilified categories. But another is the invidious prejudice against artists as exemplars of freedom in action. In media blowhards’ arsenal, artists have been a weapon of choice for far too long.

Art’s essence is its ability to engage us fully in body, emotions, mind and spirit, to create beauty and meaning, to cultivate imaginative empathy, to disturb the peace, to enable grief in the face of loss and hope in the face of grief. The great James Baldwin said that, “The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions which have been hidden by the answers.” My definition of a life worth living is one marked by a congruence of inner and outer realities, in which actions are shaped by the questions that truly matter most.

No one can guarantee that we will get what we want. All we can do is discover what ignites our passion, offer up our best efforts in its service, and surrender to the processes that have produced so many astounding surprises in the course of human history. As every artist knows, the pleasure is in the doing, at least as much as the result. I salute tonight’s honorees for embodying these truths with such power and persistence.   Read more »

Comments

1 comment posted
New Book: An Illuminated Torah Commentary

To The Shalom Center:

I have been receiving your poignant and incisive Shalom Center posts for several months. In conjunction with your global philosophy, prophetic calls to action and work through the arts to disseminate your ideas, I thought you might like to know about my book, Between Heaven & Earth: An Illuminated Torah Commentary (Pomegranate, 2009) as a possible new resource for you. It is a most unusual visual midrash, with illustrations and commentary for each of the fifty-four parashiyot. You may find a preview at: http://www.pomegranate.com/a166.html The book, distributed in the US, UK and Europe is available directly from the publisher at: 1-800-227-1428 and at Amazon worldwide.

I have also been posting excerpts from the book at my blog and invite you to post your comments and questions there: http://imaginarius13.wordpress.com/

With Best Wishes for Peace and continued Creativity,
Ilene Winn-Lederer
12 May, 2010

Posted by Ilene Winn-Lederer (not verified) on 5/12/2010

Thomas Friedman , columnist for the NY Times and a stodgy middle-of-the-roader, says that the Israeli government has become a drunk driver, addicted to swallowing up more and more territory at the cost of any decent peace with Palestine.

The Torah did not know about "drunken drivers." But it did know that some people might thirst to swallow up their neighbors' land and houses: "Cursed be he who moves back his neighbor's territory-marker. And all the people shall say, 'Amen!' " (Deut 27: 17)

And of course it knew the most profound alternative to that kind of greed: "When a stranger lives with you in your land, you shall not wrong him. … He shall be to you as one of your citizens. You shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the Land of Narrows. I YHWH, the Breath of Life, am your God." (Lev. 19:27.)

Until now, US governments have firmly opposed only those Palestinians who have been addicted to violence, but not an Israeli government addicted to land-grabs and to wronging their neighbors.

It seems that the Obama administration may at last be ready to confront the drunk drivers in the Israeli government as well as the violence-addicts among some Palestinian leaders. May.

I say "may" because what we --- the American people -- do is crucial. The White House will back down if it sees little public support. It might stay firm if it hears public acclaim.

Friends, it is said, don't let their friends drive drunk. Will you back up a decision by the White House to stop drunk driving by our friends?

If you will, The Shalom Center has prepared a model letter to Senators, urging them to support firm action for peace. You can add your own words and sign it by clicking here.

Please also keep in mind: For a deeper discussion of these issues, please click to see the article "What Strategy for Middle East Peace? Grass-roots organizing -- for what?"

   Read more »

PESACH: REBIRTHING THE EARTH, THE PEOPLE, & FREEDOM

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow | 2/23/2010

[This is a thoroughly revised version of Chapter 9 of my book Seasons of Our Joy, originally published in 1982 and most recently published in 1990 by Beacon Press.
[In the years since, the book has often been called a classic. Readers — both Jews and others — tell me its approach to the history, the spiritual meaning, and the actual practice of the festivals remains very helpful to them.
[Shalom Center members and subscribers can order the book from Beacon at a 10% discount with free shipping. For information on how to do this, see the very end of this post.
[The revised chapter follows. I welcome comments and suggestions, either directly to me at Awaskow@shalomctr.org or in the comments section at its end here on our Website. – Shalom, AW]]


PESACH: REBIRTHING THE EARTH, THE PEOPLE, & FREEDOM

The month of spring — the first month, says the Torah: time to begin. As the flowers rise up against winter, so the Israelites rise up against Pharaoh. The peoplehood of Israel is born — and we celebrate the freedom of new births and new beginnings. The feverish hilarity of early spring, of Purim, becomes a more directed, more devoted vigor.

ORIGINS

Many scholars believe that Pesach is a fusion of two early festivals — one of shepherds, one of farmers — that welcomed spring in two quite different ways. As the month of lambing begins in the flock, the shepherds may have celebrated the flock’s fertility by sacrificing a sheep, smearing its blood on the doorposts of their tents, dancing a skipping “Pesach” (“skip-over, pass-over”) dance around their campfires that imitated the skipping, stumbling steps of newborn lambs. (Pause for a moment to absorb the extraordinary imaginal and ethical leap of the Pesach story in saying that as the shepherds imitated stumbling lambs, God imitated stumbling shepherds — or lambs. For God protected a newborn freedom for runaway slaves by making sure that Death would skip over, pass over, “pesach,” their homes.)

As for the farmers — in preparation for the harvest of spring barley and wheat, they may have cleared out from their homes and storehouses all the chametz, the sour dough, the starter dough they used to make the bread rise. They were not only starting over for the year’s new crop, but starting over in human history by eating the most ancient bread of all, the flat unleavened bread that was the beginning of the farmer’s food.   Read more »

Comments

3 comments posted
Article you’ve wrote is just

Article you’ve wrote is just amazing, but I’m wondering when people instead of just reading articles like this and go away will do smth about that? We need changes, our planet needs it..Isn’t that understandable?

Posted by Anna (not verified) on 2/28/2010
query on term "ma-oz chittin"

Seeing it spelled “ma-oz chittin” makes me wonder. Since the first word of that phrase ends in a “tav,” Ashkenazic Jews pronounce it “ma-oz chittin” — other Jews pronounce it “ma-ot chittin” as far as I’ve heard. Do Jewish Renewal Jews pronounce “tav” as /z/ … which “ma-oz chittin” suggests they must be doing? If so, why?

Posted by Kate Gladstone (not verified) on 2/28/2010
Ashkenazic memories

You may also have noticed I used “Shabbos” instead of “Shabbat,” the Ashkenazic rather than the Sephardic way of saying & spelling the word for “Sabbath.” (The Askenazim use an “s” or “z” sound in many places where Sephardim use a “t” sound.) Most of the time I use the Sephardic forms that have dominated American synagogues — since Israeli pronunciations followed that practice and the Hebrew schools and synagogues decided to follow Israeli practice (except among the Hassidim where Yiddish still has influence); but as a child I learned the Ashkenazic sound and my heart still loves it.

Recently, davvening [praying] in the Lomdim chavurah-style minyan in Chicago, I heard a word-form that would have been inconceivable a generation ago. The shlichat tzibbur [messenger of the congregation to Heaven — leader pf prayer] for the Amidah [central standing prayer] was celebrating not only the Patriarchs, as the tradition has done for 2000 years, but also the Matriarchs — a new and for me important emendation. The word for the patriarchs is “Avotenu” or in the traditional Ashkenazic, “Avosenu.” In every congregation I have known that does the Matriarchs, they are called “Imotenu,” “our Mothers.” In every congregation that still uses the Ashkenazic word-form, the Matriarchs are not included. But this davvener said “Avosenu/v’imosenu” — and I almost fell over in surprise and pleasure. I went over afterwards to tell him that one word had transfixed me in its fusion of tradition and transformation. He laughed and said, “That;’s who I am!”

Shalom, salaam, peace — Arthur

Posted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on 3/1/2010

Comments

1 comment posted
Analysis of Cantwell's CLEAR proposal

Thanks Rabbi Waskow,

Here’s the Carbon Tax Center’s analysis of the CLEAR “cap-and-dividend” proposal:

Senators Cantwell (D- WA.) and Collins (R-ME.) introduced the Carbon Limits and Energy for America’s Renewal (CLEAR) Act (12/11/09). While retaining a “cap” and limited trading, CLEAR would avoid the most profound flaws of the Waxman-Markey bill (passed by the House in June) and the Kerry-Boxer bill, now stalled in the Senate. CLEAR would set a floor and ceiling (“collar”) on carbon allowance prices, authorize only “covered entities” to hold allowances and would not allow offsets to be used in place of allowances. Perhaps most noteworthy is CLEAR’s proposal to “recycle” 75% of revenue directly to households, contrasting sharply with the cap-and-trade bills’ give-away of carbon revenue and its equivalent in free allowances to an array of special interests and energy projects. With Sen. Susan Collins’ (R-ME) co-sponsorship, CLEAR begins as a bipartisan proposal.

CLEAR purports to preclude a secondary market (or “derivatives”) in carbon allowances. But analysts are uncertain about whether the bill can prevent large energy users from contracting to hedge against seasonal and cyclical price swings. Also, the low price range of bill — $7 to $21 per ton of CO2 in the initial year, 2012, rising each year at approximately 6% above inflation — is not nearly sufficient to achieve the needed emissions reductions. CTC’s Carbon Tax Impact Model suggests that this price trajectory will only lead to a 7.5% drop in U.S. CO2 emissions from 2005 levels in 2020. Instead of a substantial price signal, the bill relies much more heavily on subsidies for clean-energy investment which would come from the 25% of revenue not returned to households. CLEAR’s goal is emissions reductions of 20% from a 2005 baseline by 2020.

CLEAR’s price collar would make carbon prices more predictable and in that sense the bill is much closer to the “gold standard” of a carbon tax than cap-and-trade proposals. But its $7 – 21 range is wide enough to allow significant volatility that could discourage investment in alternatives and efficiency while generating profits for speculators. Potential volatility combined with CLEAR’s low price mean that its price signal would be “noisy” and small — not the clear upwardly trending price signal that would most strongly encourage low-carbon energy.

Finally, a volatile price makes linkage to international carbon markets (or carbon taxes) needlessly complex or even impossible.

http://www.carbontax.org/progress/carbon-tax-bills/

Posted by James Handley (not verified) on 2/3/2010

Comments

2 comments posted
Avatar: a flawed film, and the perils of propaganda

I am quite surprised that you missed the crucial points about the meaning of Avatar, but I suppose that comes with the glaring blindness inherent in your political perspective. The most obvious thing about Avatar is that Jake Sully plays a role exactly parallel to Osama Bin Laden: the rebel leader of the “natives” rising up to “shake off” the yoke of the evil oppressors. In other words, in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, this means simply taking the side of the Palestinians and blaming the Israelis for their “injustice”, “oppression”, etc etc… which you obviously do, judging from your (I’m sorry to say) pathetic performance in the “debate” with Omar Barghouti on Democracy Now (20100304).

You should have begun that “debate” by pointing out to Amy Goodman that it was improper to call it a debate, since you and Barghouti both agree that the solution is to destroy Israel, but that you just differ in how to accomplish this. For his part, Barghouti was quite obvious in the presentation of his standard propaganda line (although I was impressed by the way he managed to position himself against the background of an official “UC Berkeley” podium — surely a subtle but effective way to lend legitimacy to his campaign to destroy Israel).

When asked why he was calling for a boycott of Israel, Barghouti said it was because of Israel’s “three-tiered system of oppression against the Palestinian people, its occupation …. its 1967 occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and that includes East Jerusalem, as well as its system of racial discrimination against its non-Jewish citizens, the Palestinians as citizens of Israel, and first and foremost, its denial of the right of return for the Palestinians, the Palestinian refugees in accordance with United Nations resolution 194.”

Did you, Rabbi, offer any objection to these points? You offered none, but proceeded as if you hadn’t heard what he said, instead giving your own suggestions as to how to “bring down Israel”: get the Americans to do it.

In fact, you should have pointed out that not one of his 3-tiers of oppression has any validity, and if you don’t know that, and if you can’t point out why these 3 points are untrue (and presented only for propaganda value), then you have some research to do. But I would like to point out that not only did Barghouti list Israel’s refusal of the “right of return” as the 3rd tier of its oppression, but later in the discussion he specifically contradicted you when you suggested that the USA should impose a solution to the problem by creating a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza & East Jerusalem. Barghouti said in no uncertain terms that this would not be enough, because the “first and foremost” thing is the right of return, and the rights of the “Palestinians” who are already citizens of Israel. Since you did not respond to his comment at the time, I assume you just didn’t hear him, but this is what he said:

This is not just about ending the occupation. There are three basic rights for the Palestinian people. The majority of the Palestinians happen to be not in the occupied territories. They happen to be refugees, ethnically cleansed during the creation of the state of Israel in and after 1948. These are completely ignored. Reducing Palestinian rights to simply ending the occupation will not do. This is simply unacceptable.”

Barghouti went on to talk about ending the “seige” in Gaza and blaming Israel for genocide, etc., and again you offered no debate, but passed over this propagandist line in silence, returning to your (misguided, in my opinion) “strategy” to get the Americans to fix everything.

Finally, there is one other crucial flaw in the movie Avatar that I believe you missed. Throughout the first half of the movie, the script did a great job of depicting “native” spirituality, and of capturing the sense of connection with “earth” and with natural forces which is so much a part of native beliefs. But when the hammer-headed rhinoceros came charging through the trees to avenge the death of the Tree, the movie moved from the sublime to the absurd. All of the beauty, subtlety, and grace with which the native “religion” had been depicted suddenly vanished as it was revealed that the Tree was now really pissed off and intent upon ruthless vengeance. Could you imagine a better depiction of a sanction for Jihad? No wonder the Palestinians have been painting themselves as blue Na’vi when protesting Israel’s security barrier.

I would suggest to you that the movie Avatar could have been a truly great vehicle for spreading understanding about the conflicts in our world which the movie “paralleled”. The key would be to explore the dynamic driving the Crusher institutions, especially the character presented as the corporate representative, who played such a small role in the movie, but actually held the real power in his hands. But instead of looking at the real issues involved, and considering real options, the movie opted for a Hollywood white-hat/black-hat solution, and really did us all a disservice. In the same way, I believe you are doing a disservice to Americans and israelis alike — and to the Palestinians— when you let blatant lies and substanceless propaganda pass without objection because you think you see some “strategy” for a solution that (apparently) doesn’t require us to recognize bullshit as bullshit. In other words, for all its 3-D technological brilliance, the message of Avatar was bullshit.

Post-finally, I regret having expressed myself so rudely here, because I know you are a thoughtful and well-intentioned person. Moreover, I have a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that I’d like you to consider, but now that I might have insulted you, I guess that’s not likely to happen. Still, I feel that these are important issues, and need to be understood clearly, and that there can be no real progress if we replace brutal honesty in telling it like it is with a phony politeness.

P.S.
I’d like to end with a quote from Omar Barghouti in a debate (found on YouTube) which he had with a law professor at Georgetown University, when he was accused of simply desiring the destruction of Israel. He said: “If changing a state from one of oppression, racism and injustice to one of fairness and justice results in the destruction of that state, what does that say about the state?” I’ve been hard pressed to find a better example of pure propaganda: a statement that appears to be an intelligent comment, but when analyzed reveals nothing more than a propagandist assertion: Israel is an oppressive, racist and unjust state. And of course, the real response to a statement like this is to ask, “If your real concern with Israel is injustice and racism, then are you equally vocal in you objection to other states whose policies are unjust and racist? For example, Jews are prevented by law from living in Jordan, and when Jordan occupied Jerusalem and the West Bank, Jews were forbidden from even visiting. Have you been loudly protesting such racism? And how about the Islamic Republic of Islam: are you at the forefront of the battle to open that society to Jews and all peoples?” Of course Barghouti has never voiced opposition to any other Arab or Muslim state … he is simply practicing the art of propaganda.

Posted by oloren (not verified) on 3/4/2010
what I wonder about the Na'vi

What I wonder about the Na’vi:

Their green, organic technology includes many ways to bring death — from poisoned arrows to the ability to wield death wholesale through mind-links with the animals and trees — but the Na’vi are singularly devoid of something as important as a way to preserve life: namely, they do not appear to have any form of medicine. When one of the humans receives a deep wound, all the Na’vi can do is put her under a tree, sit around, and absorb themselves in some form of “yoga davening” till she dies.

And *these* people I should strive to admire and emulate?

Posted by Kate Gladstone (not verified) on 3/1/2010

Comments

10 comments posted
so called health reform

Just happened to see this letter, the site and some comments… these so- called rabbis granted themselves a right to pass qualifications as what is a Jewish value and what is not. How much time have they spent on learning even a single subject as ‘teshuva’? Learning, not ‘re-inventing’? Being too weak to grow, they call their shortcomings ‘getting out of the ghetto’. To be chosen is uncomfortable for them. If they only try to give an honest try and learn from the real teachers (we have a real messorah and were not called smart just in recent years)! Tthe fact is that truly observant (learned and learning!) Jews are overwhelmingly against this ‘reform’, and if this reform is so great, why they have to jam it down our throat and buy Nelsons and Liebermans? Keep in mind that the Anti-Semitism was created to remind the Jews that they are Jews if they happened to forget it themselves (the chosen kind of Jews and not the re-invented). How sad – even a goy Bart Stupak shows more ‘Jewish bone’ than these unlearned self-proclaimed teachers of immoral values which they falsify as ‘Jewish’! Shame on all of you! Jews, not interested in torah - try learning the Constitution at least.

Posted by Torah-is-our-guide (not verified) on 12/23/2009
Upholding Jewish standards outside the ghetto walls

I’ve been delighted by the vigor of the various comments, and want to assure the chaver (community-member) who proposed we withdraw the letter that we are utterly joyful that as of Monday afternoon (Dec 21) 1950 Jews, including more than 150 rabbis and chazzanim (cantors) had signed it. Many others are full-time Jewish-community professionals or Jewish-studies professors.

We have no doubts of the letter’s religious legitimacy. Anyone who thinks we were taking “pekuach nefesh” (saving life, the prime dorective of Jewish law) out of context is welcome to explain that to families of the thousands of Americans who have died because they could not afford to pay the insurance companies’ fees for health care.

Many signers wrote additional notes about how outraged they are by Lieberman’s behavior and how ashamed they are as Jews by what he has done.

In Jewish communities before the modern era, the Jewish response to violations of sacred Jewish value and mitzvot was in Jewish hands, and punishment for whatever the ghetto authorities thought reprehensible was easy to impose. Fines, even excommunication, could be invoked. And since the lives of Jews were carried on inside a Jewish framework, adherence to “Jewish values” was quite enforceable.

Even in the early generations of Jewish immigration to America, when the ghetto was gone but most Jews still lived in close-knit communities that were urgent to protect themselves against non-Jewish contempt, there were ways to enforce Jewish standards. In my childhood, for example, I occasionally heard the epithet “chillul hashem” used to rebuke a Jew who had behaved in ways the majority of non-Jews would find reprehensible.

The phrase literally means “hollowing out the Name,” or “shaming God.” It came to mean shaming the Jewish people. In days when Jews felt vulnerable, the accusation of that kind of shaming was enough to keep many would-be sinners in line.

But the great majority of American Jews today are glad to have shattered the ghetto walls, and the fear of contempt from non-Jews has withered, almost vanished. And what of Jews who are acting in ways that many non-Jews would not mind, but to many Jews feel like a violation not of the sensibilities of the broader society, but indeed of what they understand Judaism and the God of Torah demands? After all, Senator Lieberman was not acting any different from 40 other Senators when he threatened to filibuster against health care.

Perhaps that kind of behavior is “chillul hashem” in the sense of shaming God indeed, even if not damaging the public image of the jewish people?

In the past decades, Jewish public opinion has been mobilized to condemn very wealthy donors to the Jewish communioty who turned out to have garnered the money they were donating by lawbreaking. Jewish public opinion has been mobilized against a Jewish corporate owner whose corporation was logging great stands of ancient redwoods, and against an extremely wealthy Jewish donor who was the head of a major cigarette company. See “Redwoods, Tobacco, and Torah” at http://www.theshalomcenter.org/node/178

Step by step, case by case, there is emerging a pattern of effort by Jewish communities living in an open society to honor those Jews who pursue Jewish values and to rebuke those who do not. No doubt there will be disagreements among Jews as to which persons fit in one or the other category; but over time, the process will be strengthened as experience shapes the boundaries of particular choices. The Lieberman Letter is another step forward in renewing Jewish responsibility in a new kind of Jewish world.

Rabbi Arthur Waskow
Director, The Shalom Center

Posted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on 12/22/2009
Health Care

I am a non-Jewish, spiritual person who wanted Single Payer/Medicare for all. As a health professional, I hate that patients are discharged often too soon, especially psychiatric homeless ones. As a volunteer w/homeless families, what I hear from them is that 90% would still have homes if they only had insurance to cover unexpected, catastrophic medical bills. Please reconsider and support what taxpayers want: Affordable Health care for all!

Posted by Anonymous (not verified) on 12/18/2009
Despicable

I, for one, have no need or will to see him in the democratic Party. We have enough scummy Blue Dogs, and a person who has prostituted himself to the health insurance companies should not be welcome in the big tent called the democratic Party.
You cause many of us to be ashamed you that we share the same religion, and further - you are an embarrassment to humanity. It was a big mistake to accept you in the caucuses, and it will be a bigger mistake to ignore the damage you have caused. What a despicable creature!

Posted by Avi Zechory, DVM (not verified) on 12/18/2009
To Sen. Lieberman

I believe you may THINK you are doing the right thing, but since when are you the expert about what we can afford? Jewish values, even common sense morality demands that you support health care reform so that every American can have what Europeans and others have had for years. The recession only makes it more urgent that you provide relief for the millions of us who have lost our jobs AND our health care. Stop catering to the insurance giants and do what you were elected to do!

Posted by Julie Zolot (not verified) on 12/17/2009
Joe Lieberman

Say it ain’t so, Joe! You are morphing into a Goldwater Republican right before our eyes. Please return to your democratic values of yore.

Posted by David Rabinovitz (not verified) on 12/17/2009
I help very poor Jews who

I help very poor Jews who often have difficulty with insurance coverage and quality medical care. My experience makes me agree with the necessity of this letter.

— David Schwartz
New Jersey

Posted by David Schwartz (not verified) on 12/17/2009
I totally agree. Don’t throw

I totally agree. Don’t throw Americans under the bus. You are supposed to represent the people not big insurance industries. Stand by your people! That is why you were elected!

Posted by Anonymous (not verified) on 12/17/2009
Way to go, Joe!!!

This letter is utter stupidity. Lieberman correctly opposed the public option because it does the opposite of what its proponents suggest - it actually increases costs, decreases choice, and ultimately lowers the quality of care. Not to mention the fact that it would create a massive deficit that would require enormous tax hikes and reduction in services to cover. To claim Lieberman is ignoring the obligation of pikuach nefesh is laughable. Tzedek tzedek tirdof refers to judges in beis din, which is of course not relevant here. More appropriately, I would apply the pasuk of m’davar sheker tirchak. The bill and its supporters represent complete sheker. Or perhaps the precept al tis-chaber l’rasha. Supporters of institutionalized sheker and oppression are moving in the direction of rishoim. At the very least, I would say Lieberman, in standing up against the party leaders and the masses of liberal drones, who mistakenly think there is something idealistic about socialized medicine, is like Yehuda HaMakabi, leading the charge against the Greek army, despite the numbers. Yes, Lieberman is like the chashmonians and refusniks who would not just go with the flow and who would not acquiesce. That’s why I say “Way to go, Joe!”

Posted by sal (not verified) on 12/18/2009
Way to Go Joe!

While I think Sen. Lieberman is disgraceful on this - and so many other issues - I must agree with the above poster that the letter is stupid. To quote a few generic phrases out of the context of a serious study of the text sources and their application to factual situations is at best ignorant, at worst close to blood libel. The poster has a different point of view and he can quote a few lines to support his position with as much legitimacy as the letter.

This is a counter productive effort which will discredit the Shalom Center in the eyes of Jews who take seriously the tradition of thoughtful text study and informed analysis. The letter should be retracted and sent to the genizah immediately.

Sen. Lieberman is wrong, not as a Jew but as a misguided, unfaithful politician.

Posted by Howard Stevens, NYC (not verified) on 12/22/2009

Can the U.S. Now Act Boldly for M. E. Peace?

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow | 6/2/2010

Dear friends,

Can the U.S. Now Act Boldly for Middle East Peace?

Our answer is --- Yes, IF the American people will support a bold policy.

And we have one to propose. Will you support it?

The U.S. government has the economic and diplomatic power to make peace happen -- but so far has refused to use it.   Read more »

Comments

4 comments posted
Right of return/Peace

I am wondering why the Jewish Right Of Return is never discussed? The Palestinians left voluntarily because Israel’s Arab neighbors promised them all of Israel if they left. At the same time Jews were forced to leave Iran, Syria, Egypt, etc… under the threat of severe persecution or murder. Their possessions were seized and stolen. Don’t the Jews have a more legitimate right of return than those that left voluntarily for the promise of financial gain?

Another issue is whether peace is possible with people lead by Hamas. With people willing to blow up school buses. With people that believe that murdering their own daughter because she was raped by an older male relative restores their honor. By people that worship a book that talks about killing every Jew behind every rock.

Is there really a partner for peace?

Posted by LB (not verified) on 4/27/2010
movement in the US for Israeli/Palestinian peace

Agreeing with Rabbi Waskow’s basic focus, I’ll suggest one important strategy is to support
candidates for US Congress and US Senate who clearly articulate the vision of a just and peaceful
Israel and Palestine, and what it will take to help bring that into reality. Unfortunately, J Street’s PAC has adopted a policy to not endorse candidates in primaries, essentially emasculating J Street as an effective advocate for truly pro-peace candidates. We need to let all progressive Jews know when a courageous leader is running for high office, and do our best to support such efforts.

For example, Jonathan Tasini (www.jonathantasini.com) running for US Senate in New York, challenging the unelected Kirsten Gillibrand in next September’s Democratic primary. Here’s an article by Tasini printed by Huffington Post in 2006: Published on Friday, March 24, 2006 by the Huffington Post :

Why Jews Must Speak Out on Palestine
by Jonathan Tasini

Yesterday, I spoke at an event in New York City called Rachel’s Words. Two years ago, Rachel Corrie, a human rights activist, was crushed to death by an Israeli Army bulldozer as she tried to protect the home of a Palestinian pharmacist from demolition in Rafah, Gaza Strip. She was 23. A play based on her writing, “My Name is Rachel Corrie” was scheduled to open yesterday in New York City but it’s debut was postponed indefinitely, in all likelihood because of the controversy it would cause in a city with such a large Jewish audience.

As a Jew who lived in Israel for seven years and whose family still lives there and has deep roots going back more than 80 years, it breaks my heart that there is a refusal to grapple with an almost untouchable topic in our country: why does the United States have such a one-sided policy in the Israel-Palestine conflict? And it’s the reason I agreed to speak at the event which honored Rachel’s life and her beliefs.

The event took place at the historic Riverside Church. I stood in the pulpit in the very same place that Dr. Martin Luther King stood almost 40 years ago. And that’s where I began my remarks:
Almost 40 years ago, in 1967, Dr. King spoke in this very place about the need to speak up against a great purveyor of violence: his own government. He said, “If America ‘s soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read Vietnam…So it is that those of us who are yet determined that “America will be” are led down the path of protest and dissent, working for the health of our land.”

Dr. King also said that he was speaking on behalf “of the people who have been living under the curse of war for almost three continuous decades now. I think of them too because it is clear to me that there will be no meaningful solution there until some attempt is made to know them and hear their broken cries.”

I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours.”

How those words, sadly, have so much meaning for us today.

Those of us who stand opposed to the war in Iraq do so as patriotic people who love our country and our communities but, because it is our country, we demand that it live up to high moral standards of peace, justice, democracy and human rights.

We speak and stand up and oppose the war in Iraq for the same reason that we speak and stand up and say the occupation of the Palestinian people is wrong, morally and legally, and must end with a negotiated, just, and peaceful solution between the lawfully elected governments of the Palestinian people and Israel.
To be honest, I don’t think most Jews — and certainly this is true of most Americans — understand the brutality of the occupation, the violations of international law and our role in perpetuating that occupation. Most Jews have never been to the area and so they either have no idea what goes on or choose to ignore the awful reality. Their perceptions are framed by the MSM and pandering politicians.

If you raise a criticism of Israel or our country’s policy towards the conflict, you immediately are targeted, within the Jewish community, as being either disloyal (if you are Jewish) or anti-Semitic (if you are not Jewish). This is nonsense and has got to stop.

In fact, those politicians who pander to our worst instincts of fear and hatred, who praise policies that violate international law, they are the ones who are hurting Israel’s long-term security and the security of all the people in the area.

So, let me state clearly: I believe unequivocally in a secure, prosperous Israel. But I also believe with the same passion that the occupation is draining the moral and economic strength of Israel and that there will only be a just peace agreement when a Palestinian state — a strong, vibrant, prosperous, independent state, able to provide jobs and a good life for its people — thrives alongside Israel.
Taking away the liberty, the humanity and the dignity of the Palestinian people takes away from the security from Israel. Targeting civilians, killing innocent men, women and children is evil — no matter who is doing it. Killing civilians is a “grave breach” of international humanitarian law.

Whatever the circumstances, such acts are unjustifiable. We have to end the violence on both sides and support the peacemakers in both Israel and among the Palestinian people.
Opposition to the occupation is showing enormous love for Israel and for the Palestinian people. For the sake of Israel and for the sake of all people in that region who are fed up with three decades of war and occupation, we have to have an honest, open discussion.

There is a physical embodiment of the occupation that we must speak up against now: the separation barrier that is being built in the occupied territories, sl icing through Palestinian communities, with the support of the U.S. government. Yes, Israel has a right to protect it citizens. But last night I asked:
How does peace come one day closer when we do not speak out against a wall that not only violates international law but, more important, embitters thousands of people for generations to come because it cuts off neighborhoods, separates families from each other, farmers from their land, the sick from hospitals, children from the schools and saps the economic vitality from an already impoverished people?
We have politicians who claim to be for the rule of law and stand before the Wall (as Hillary Clinton has done) and praise it — even though it violates international law.

For us in the United States, the question becomes what is our government’s role in perpetuating this conflict. As I said:
For too long, under both Democratic and Republican administrations, our government has had a counterproductive, one-sided policy that too often ignores democracy, human rights, and respect for international law.
Let’s get this debate going. Begin to raise it among your friends and do so with the same love and commitment that you do for our country that leads you to vigorously oppose the Iraq war.

As Dr. King said in 1967, “Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now.”

Jonathan Tasini is running for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate in New York. For the past 25 years, Jonathan has been a union leader and organizer, a social activist, and a commentator and writer on work, labor and the economy.
© 2006 The Huffington Post

Please support Tasini’s campaign. He’s great on all issues. He’s got a chance, if he can raise enough money to be ‘taken seriously’ by the media.

www.jonathantasini.com— click on Donate.

Thanks!

Will Fudeman

Posted by Will Fudeman (not verified) on 3/14/2010
A new proposal for a just peace in the Middle East

Hello Rabbi Waskow,

I’d like to make a few comments on your strategy for peace in the Middle East, but first I’d like to apologize to you for a rash comment I previously made, asserting that your solution to the problem is tantamount to advocating the destruction of Israel. I was very glad to read here that you recognize that Omar Barghouti’s insistence on “the right of return” is in fact a strategy for dissolving Israel as a Jewish state:

But that result would shatter any possibility of Israel’s having a special relationship with the Jewish people. To create such a state was why Israel came into existence. Dissolving it is so far from acceptable to Israelis that it means a No-Go on all negotiations. Mr. Barghouti said he has no objection to a “Jewish state,” but that’s meaningless under the conditions he proposed. His totalistic attack aimed at all aspects of israeli society is integrally connected with a totalistic demand for dismantling the only purpose for Israel’s existence.”

I’d also like to say that I agree whole-heartedly with you when you say:

I see my task as seeking to bring about an independent, God-centered vision of a just peace. I understand God’s desire — command — to be ending the wars …”

However, I can’t agree with the final clause of that last sentence, in which you denied that God’s desire or command could be “winning victories for either side over the other”. Sometimes, in fact most of the time in human history, the only thing that stops conflict is victory or defeat. But I certainly do believe that we should apply all of our human intelligence to resolving conflict by means other than violence. For me, that means that we need to understand the issues deeply, and that we must be able to recognize the objectives, motives and strategies of all parties involved. It just doesn’t work to shut your eyes to what is really going on and cling to a simplistic desire for peace. You can’t have peace until you really understand the dynamic of what is preventing peace. If you see a boulder precariously perched above your home and you want to prevent the destruction of your house, you need to understand the laws of physics, and then you can design a way to avert the disaster. If you take an ethical approach and stand in the path of the boulder righteously hoping to stop it, all you will end up doing is proving the reality of laws of Universe — God’s Laws — at the cost of your life.

So, what is the best strategy for a just peace in the Middle East? Once again I must take issue with the strategies you have proposed, although I realize that you are making these proposals in good will and seriously desiring to bring about a just peace. I hope you will realize that I am criticizing your positions here — the ideas you have affirmed — and not you or your intentions.

First, I think it is a mistake to begin with a model of the situation depicting the two principal parties to the conflict as dysfunctional “hostile adults” who are the victims of psychological “childhood abuse”. Such a premise is based on myriad hypotheses of pseudo (or borderline) science in psychology, sociology, etc., many of which are merely veils concealing political agendas. In other words, it may be useful to deal with childhood traumas on a personal level, for self-understanding, just as it can be valuable to read literature to deepen one’s appreciation of the human condition, but this is certainly not the starting point for understanding and resolving political differences. The Israelis and the Palestinians are not children, and they are not dysfunctional adults acting out childhood traumas in some mechanistic “cycle”. Both need to be treated as responsible adults, and a brief look at the vibrant societies of both peoples is evidence of their integrity, as is the thoroughly organized and competent manner in which the conflict has been waged for 60 years.

This is really an important point. The fact that the conflict has been going on for so long is not proof that the combatants are caught in some process that is “out of control”, or that they are “unable to take the steps necessary for peace”. On the contrary, the incredible degree of planning, forethought, organization and perseverance that was necessary on both sides to maintain the conflict for so long proves without a doubt the competence of both sides. What is necessary is to address these supremely confident and competent parties with respect, acknowledging each as a responsible party to the conflict. What third party players can do is offer advice and new perspectives on how each might change their strategy in dealing with the other, leading to a compromise in which each can achieve enough of their objectives to make peace seem agreeable.

I would strongly urge you to consider, Rabbi, that any other peace, such as one imposed by a stronger 3rd party, without the total consent of both parties responsible for this conflict, is merely a recipe for disaster in the future. Thus, in my opinion, your suggestion that “focusing the power and influence of the United States to bring about a decent peace among the warring parties in the Middle East…” is supremely misguided. Of course, the United States does have a huge roll to play in helping to find a resolution to the conflict, especially by brokering negotiations, and by suggesting new options and strategies to both parties, and perhaps most crucially, by using its “power and influence” to prevent others from meddling in the conflict while pursing their own interests (which is and has been a major dynamic of the conflict, e.g., the influence of Islamic fundamentalist militants and the states supporting them).

Finally, I would like to offer a counter suggestion to your imagined scenario of the United States economically blackmailing Israel by withholding critical foreign-aid funds until Israel succumbs to the economic pressure and makes concessions such as relocating half a million Israelis out of the West Bank settlements (what planet are you living on, Rabbi Waskow?). I think my counter proposal will suffice to answer everything else you have suggested in this article, because from this point on, everything you say is based upon the idea that a “new coalition” is possible which will be able to force Israel into adopting a peace which it does not view as true peace. Again, from my perspective, it is far more fruitful to exert our energy trying to understand what are the issues and obstacles to peace IN THE MINDS OF BOTH PARTIES than trying to find ways to bully one party into acquiescence.

A New Proposal for a Just Peace in the Middle East:

First, my premises:

-1- Israel truly desires peace with the Palestinians, and with all Arabs and Muslims.
-2- Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza & East Jerusalem and the Sinai in a defensive war, fighting for its existence against a coalition of forces intent on destroying it (and on perpetrating genocide) in the 1967 war.
-3- Israel has always been willing to trade territory captured in 1967 for lasting peace. It was able to make such a deal with Egypt, but has not yet found a sincere “partner in peace” among the Palestinians willing to make the deal (although it tried mightily to make such a deal with Arafat and the Palestinian Authority).
-4- The enemies of Israel have been unrelenting for more than 60 years, forcing Israel to maintain a more or less permanent state of war with the combatants in the region.
-5- The problem Israel has had in waging this war of six decades is that its enemies, having repeatedly lost in conventional military combat, have adopted terrorist tactics, including the intentional targeting of civilians and the institutions of civil society, as opposed to military targets, and most troublesome, enemy combatants use civilians of their own society as shields for their operations, a tactic which has effectively prevented Israel from using its overwhelming military superiority to defeat its enemies.

Based upon these premises, I think a clear strategy can be devised to end the conflict permanently.

Imagine if Israel were to make an offer to all Palestinians, including those living in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, as well as those which the United Nations considers “refugees” living in the adjacent Arab states. (The offer could also apply to any Arab Israelis already citizens of Israel.) The offer would be as follows:

To any Palestinian willing to sign a Contract of Friendship with Israel, in which they agree to live in peace as neighbors and to reject all violence and “jihad” against the State of Israel and the Israeli people, the State of Israel will provide without charge the latest modern and technologically advanced housing and community infrastructure within Palestinian townships on the West Bank (and potentially Gaza), along with security services to protect these Palestinian settlements (including incorporation within the Israeli security border), as well as access to Israeli justice system, and unfettered economic exchange with Israel (meaning no border checkpoints or other barriers to free exchange).

The State of Israel would allow the Palestinians in the townships self-determination and agree not to interfere with the social institutions of the Palestinians, whether religious, political or economic, except to the extent required to insure law enforcement and security.

Also, the State of Israel would agree, ahead of time, that when the number of such Palestinian townships within the West Bank (& Gaza) reached a critical number, that Israel would grant sovereignty to them, and recognize them as the Free Palestinian State, a sovereign nation, and would then remove all Israeli security forces not retained by treaty, once Israel was certain that the new state posed no security risk to Israel.

So, Rabbi Waskow, this is my proposal, which is sort of hybrid of an interim bi-national state leading to a two-state solution. What do you think? Of course, I have left out the unpleasant part, which for the sake of completeness I should mention. Once a sufficient number of Palestinians accepted the deal, and a sufficient portion of the West Bank was included in the townships, Israel would then have given the Palestinians a clear opportunity to declare themselves as friend or foe. It would then be possible for the Israeli military to deal with those who prefer to challenge Israel as enemies, for they would no longer be able to hide behind “innocent” civilians.

Loren Castleton
oloren1@fastmail.fm

Posted by Loren Castleton (not verified) on 3/10/2010
Jewish organizations working for Peace

HI Arthur,

I agree with you completely that now is the time to really push Israel to dismantle settlements and make peace. You mention that there are finally strong American Jewish groups that can lobby the US government to help push the process forward, but you didn’t name those groups. Are you talking about J Street? I think they are doing fabulous work.

It is helpful to name the groups moving in the right direction as it adds to their strength.

Bruce Phillips

Posted by Bruce Phillips (not verified) on 3/9/2010

Comments

1 comment posted
The lava will flow

…until we have a democratically elected, and hopefully non-religious, government established in Iran. A minor correction, Imam Ali is the Prophet Mohammad’s son-in-law…not his son, but it could have been a typo in your post. Mixing politics and religion is certainly disastrous. Any religion whether it be Judaism, Islam, or Christianity does NOT belong in politics. Organized religion (islam, judaism, christianity) = organized crime! Meanwhile, to encourage the change of the brutal islamic republic regime in Iran we can all start passing around updated information to each other and to LET Iranians in Iran know that we know how they’re suffering at the hands of their own government. As you well point out in the last part of your post, any foreign interaction, much like sanctions but even brutal force, will help to congeal ALL Iranians against the foreign occupation force.

Iran is the land of Prophets Zoroaster, and Daniel. Our ethnic religion is Zoroasterian. Islam was forced onto the Iranian plateau by the thundering herds of Arabs/Bedouins from the Arabian Peninsula (Saudi Arabia). I, personally, would like to see Islam pushed back into the Arabian Peninsula and out of the Greater Iran/Iranian Cultural Continent!

JAVID IRAN! JAVID IRAN! JAVID IRAN!

Posted by Alain D'Ellon (not verified) on 12/29/2009

Comments

1 comment posted
Go green for Chanukah and beyond

Thanks for illuminating the connections between Chanukah and this moral imperative, Rabbi! We don’t have to wait for Tu b’Shevat to rededicate ourselves to Mother Earth. As a teacher of supplementary Jewish education AND as the author of make it green: Unforgettable Tote Bags, 20 designs too cool to leave in the car, I know that healing the earth is a top priority for tikkun olam.

Posted by Eleanor Levie (not verified) on 11/23/2009

Comments

1 comment posted
Bigotry

We must work for peace w/eyes wide open. The other path is continual war and suffering. The creator loves all its children. And what @ that commandment to not bear false witness…

Posted by Anonymous on 11/15/2009

Comments

4 comments posted
The surge in Afghanistan announced last night

It seems to me that after last night, writing to our Senators is like closing the barn door after the horse is out. I’ve never believed that “might makes right.” I prefer to believe as Gandhi did that “an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” I also believe it’s no accident that Greg Mortenson’s new book STONES INTO SOUP (I think that’s the title following his compelling book 3 CUPS OF TEA) which was released yesterday is the correct avenue—education, especially of the girls in the region. I’m having less and less confidence in the foolhardiness of men of this world (I’m including President Obama) who insist on drawing swords and more and more in the power of the women. I can’t imagine women sending their precious sons and daughters into a senseless battle after all that has been demonstrated in the past. Surge? Haven’t we already been there and done that? We missed our opportunity when we bought into the previous President’s lies about Iraq and started a war there. It’s past time to cut our losses. Haven’t we already lost more than enough?

Sandra L Cohen
Santa Cruz, CA

Posted by Sandra L Cohen (not verified) on 12/2/2009
Today

today, 12/2/09, 25 peace groups from around the country in all major cities and many minor cities will be protesting this terrible excalation of the Vietnam, no, sorry, the Afghanistan War.

War is not the answer, it damages people, communities, families, strangers, all human systems. We have bombed Iraq into the stoneage, and not one NGO has been let in to Iraq for the last 8 years. And for no reason!

Justice with Peace,

David Fillingham

Posted by David Fillingham (not verified) on 12/2/2009
Ft. Hood shootings

C’mon, you wouldn’t be so sympathetic (or at least equivocal) if the victims had been abortion providers, or if the murderer had been a Jewish physician (such as Dr. Baruch Goldstein).

Posted by Anonymous on 11/10/2009
ft hood

our army which gave Mr. Hassan his training would not let him out.
Who hears the blatant opposition he uttered in blogs, even in his classes which he both took and taught.

We hoped with Obama, we hoped hard, and now we must take to the streets again, yes.

Posted by Anonymous on 11/9/2009

Comments

2 comments posted
Cell-Towers and Eco-Kosher

Is placing Industrial-sized Celltowers in the dome of our place of worship Eco-Kosher?

Posted by Anonymous (not verified) on 7/24/2010
CLEANER ENVIRONMENT NO AID TO VICTIMS OF MICROWAVE/LASER TORTURE

• And it’s happening in the Phila. area and throughout the nation — a covert government genocide hiding in plain sight

SECRET USE OF MICROWAVE/LASER RADIATIONDIRECTED ENERGY WEAPONSON U.S. CITIZENS BY MULTI-AGENCYEXECUTIVE ACTIONPROGRAMAPPARENTLY RUN OUT OF HOMELAND SECURITYFUSION CENTERSSUCH AS THE ONE IN NEWTOWNPA

Thousands of unjustly targeted Americans are being damaged by the devastating physiological effects of being silently irradiated by microwave and laser radiation directed energy weapons by a secret executive branch multi-agency coordinated action program…

the weaponization of the electromagnetic spectrum, a silent “final solution” that may have the nation’s political leadership in its ideological cross-hairs.

This technology is capable of altering moods, emotions, inducing fatigue, weakness, exhaustion, confusion, life-altering injury, disease and a slow-kill death.

And key elements of the federal bureaucracy — chief among them the defense/security/intel establishment — are proliferating these technologies by various modalities, reported to include terrestrial and satellite electromagnetic microwave/laser emissions — in one iteration, disguised as cell towers.

American citizens and families targeted by this covert torture matrix also are subject to financial sabotage that decimates their livelihoods and financial resources…

and relentless “community stalking” — harassment, surreptitious home entries and vandalism by government-enabled vigilantes affiliated with federally-funded community policing and anti-terrorism organizations.

Warrantless, covert placement of GPS tracking devices and misuse of cell phone technology to hunt down the unjustly targeted enables this grassroots terrorism.

But the Obama administration continues to allow these warrantless intrusions into the lives of unjustly targeted American families.

By its naivete — its unquestioning rubber-stamp approval of the deployment of these destructive technologies and programs — the Obama administration risks presiding over the destruction of democracy, the rule of law, and personal liberty.

PRESIDENT OBAMACONGRESS:

BAN the use of microwave/laser directed energy weapons on U.S. citizens or any human being (including experimentation) as cruel and unusual punishment and a crime against humanity.

BAN the warrantless tracking of individuals with GPS devices, or via cell phones — the electronic backbone of an American Gestapo now operating on YOUR watch.

http://nowpublic.com/world/gestapo-usa-govt-funded-vigilante-network-ter… OR (if link is corrupted/disabled):

http://NowPublic.com/scrivener RE: “GESTAPO USA

Vic Livingston, former business reporter, WTXF-TV Fox 29, Philadelphia Bulletin

Posted by Anonymous on 10/29/2009

Comments

1 comment posted
Yonit's understanding of God

Reb Arthur, your granddaughter is a great teacher…as most children are. thank you so much for sharing this gift of her insight with all of us! God as Community…I love that!

blessings,
 Laura

http://orli-shines.blogspot.com

Posted by Anonymous on 11/4/2009

Comments

1 comment posted
Thank You

I was reading this after I looked up The Art of Gentle Refusal and was brought to the Shalom Center in my search. Your courage, love and understanding in the face of great pain reminds me the we are all connected and to have an open heart is to be open to both. Recently I’ve been listening to Pema Chodron a Buddhist teacher who talks about releasing tears so that others may not have to. It is part of selflessness and the paradox that you spoke of I think. In the wheel of life we are born and die may times and it truly a blessing to be conscious and loving witness to this process.I pray for a world that recognizes all gods as one. Your words and the spirit behind them really touched my heart as I have been moving through a deep place in myself. Shalom

Posted by Anonymous on 11/14/2009

End the Afghan-Pakistan War:

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow | 10/3/2009

Photo of

We face a crucial choice, right now: An endless, self-destructive war in Afghanistan and Pakistan, or turning to a new path of drying up the swamps of despair around the world that breed terrorism.

Frank military assessments and the first-hand report and resignation letter from Foreign Service officer and ex-marine Matthew Hoh have now made clear that US troops and Predator strikes only incite ever stronger opposition in the Afghan civil war and especially can never suppress the Pashtun drive to end foreign military presence. And we now know that President Karzai’s ‘reelection” was by fraud and his brother has been on the CIA payroll for eight years. So claims that the U.S. is simply supporting indigenous struggles for freedom ring ever more false.

Instead, our military presence is bringing rampant death and maimings of body, mind, and soul to Americans and Afghans alike. More American troops will mean more dead Americans. And our pouring scores of billions into this self-destructive effort will shatter hopes for fixing our broken health care and education and infrastructure syustems at home, or our wounded planet.   Read more »

Actions on Shabbat Noah

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow | 10/1/2009

Flood in the Arava desert in Israel

Dozens of communities in America and Israel have already committed to participating in Global Climate-Healing Shabbat (initiated by The Shalom Center) on Shabbat Noach, October 23-24, 2009. Congregations and communities from as far as Uruguay and Israel have told us that they plan to be part of this consciousness and activism-raising weekend.   Read more »

Crash #5: Excruciating Pain & Oceans of Love

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow | 9/30/2009

During these past weeks, since my car crash, I have had two profound experiences I want to share with you:

  1. Brief lightning flashes of excruciating pain,
  2. Long days and weeks of love renewed and deepened.

Comments

1 comment posted
comment to article

the biggest thing i fail to see and understand is the fact that RN’S on every medical website, and even on nursing forums, describe catheter insertion as “uncomfortable” but not “painful”. it would seem that these nurses simply withhold from the patient the real PAIN actually involved. i have asked several nurses why this procedure is routinely done without an anesthetic other than local? i assume part of the reason for this, shall we say, little white lie, is because as mentioned in the above article this pain is brief. one of the nurses who responded to my question about sedation also spoke of the risks involved in sedating the patient and why it would be unethical to assume these risks to escape 30 seconds worth of pain? i feel that the level and amount of pain needs to be included in this decision. the patient about to be catheterized, after being informed of both the risks and pain involved, should be able to choose to be sedated. if nothing else the patient should be forewarned of the actual pain involved. the only reason i can see for this failure would be the fear the patient might refuse to be catheterized if fully informed. it would be very interesting if some nurses who actually catheterize patients would comment on the true reality of this procedure. thank you very much. joe

Posted by joseph r. haag (not verified) on 4/16/2010
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