Yom Kippur

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow

How are we to respond to a recent report by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life that the more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of alleged terrorists?

According to Pew, 54% of Americans who attend church services at least once a week said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is “often” or “sometimes” justified. Only 42% of people who “seldom or never” go to services agreed.

The study did not include synagogue-attending Jews or Muslims, Hispanic Catholics, or Black Protestants (all of whom might be expected, out of the historical life-experience of their groups with being tortured, to oppose it more vigorously).   Read more »

”Rabbi David Seidenberg, neohasid.org, rebduvid86@hotmail.com
David is the Eco-Judaism Fellow of the Shalom Center

We read in the Yom Kippur liturgy, “I have blotted out your transgressions like a thick cloud, and your sins like a cloud.” [Machiti kha’av p’sha’ekha v’khe’anan chatotekha, shuvah eilai ki ga’altikha.] (Isa. 44:22)

As climate change becomes one of the most pressing issues of our time, this verse from Isaiah about the clouds stands out in a new way. These days we look to the clouds not only to see if it will rain, but also to discern the traces of global climate change, the fearsome prospect that climate could become not only warmer but also unstable, melting polar caps, creating hurricanes, flooding cities and destroying ecosystems. The sky looms not only over our heads, but also in our imagination, as the mirror of how our hand is changing this planet.   Read more »

The Shalom Center was invited to join in an Amicus (friend of the court) brief in the case of Yousuf v. Samantar, involving whether survivors of torture by other governments can, in the US, sue officials of those governments as provided in US law. We agreed to join in the Amicus brief, along with other religious groups, and submitted an explanation of our stake in supporting the argument on appeal. For our explanation, see below. First, the essence of the argument we support is this:

When Congress passed the Torture Victim Protection Act (“TVPA”), 28 U.S.C.§ 1350 note (2000), it intended to allow survivors of torture to sue former officials of foreign governments in U.S. courts, on the understanding that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (“FSIA”), 28 U.S.C.§ 1602-1611 (2000), would not bar suits against former officials accused of torture.   Read more »

Dear Friends,

In 2004, as religious animosities worsened around the globe, I joined with Sister Joan Chittister, a world-renowned Benedictine nun, and Murshid Saadi Shakur Chisti (Neil Douglas-Klotz), a Muslim Sufi who has written a remarkable series of books on Aramaic, Gnostic, and Sufi spirituality —

— to write a book called THE TENT OF ABRAHAM: STORIES OF HOPE AND PEACE FOR JEWS, CHRISTIANS, & MUSLIMS.

We sent the manuscript to Karen Armstrong. She was so excited by the book that she wrote a Preface for it.   Read more »

THE PEACE OF ABRAHAM, HAGAR, & SARAH:
SHARING SACRED SEASONS, 2007

Shalom, salaam, peace! —

In the fall of 2007, several sacred seasons of the Abrahamic faiths will come together. At a moment of history when religious conflict and violence have reemerged bearing lethal dangers for each other and our planet, God has given our spiritual and religious traditions an unusual gift of sacred time.

Let us celebrate this rare confluence of THE PEACE OF ABRAHAM, HAGAR, & SARAH by praying and learning with each other and by acting together to –-

SEEK PEACE, PURSUE JUSTICE,   Read more »

Debra Cash, 6/29/2005
From Direction: A Journal of the Alexander Technique Vol2 No 9 copyright 2000 Debra Cash

At Yom Kippur, Jews are offered a fresh spiritual start: they can stop and choose not to act on false habits which seem second nature.

The holiest day of the Jewish Year is the day ordinary activities: eating, drinking, bathing, making loveare forbidden. Jews fill the emptied-out hours with prayer, meditation, study and memorialisation of loved ones. The liturgy reflects our public responsibilities as a community and on our personal commitments as individuals. During the intense and solemn hours of Yom Kippur, our spiritual efforts make room for the flowering of tshuvah.   Read more »

6/29/2005

This is a somewhat modified version of a talk/meditation process that I presented during Yom Kippur Shakharit services for the High Holydays 5753.

I offer here a short drash, commentary, on T'shuvah - from the point of view of a cell biol   Read more »

Isaiah, translated by Rabbi Arthur Waskow, 8/23/2004

The Haftarah for the Fast of Yom Kippur:
Isaiah 57:14-58:14
[Slightly midrashic translation]

And God said:
Open up, open up, Clear a path!
Clear away all obstacles
From the path of My People!
For so says the One
Who high aloft forever dwells,
Whose Name is Holy:

I dwell on high, in holiness,
And therefore with the lowly and humiliated,
To breathe new life into the humble,
To give new life to the broken-hearted.

I will not do battle against you forever,
I will not be angry with you forever.
From Me comes the breath that floats out to make the world.   Read more »

Rabbi Arthur Waskow, 9/7/2003
Midrash — reinterpretation of the text of Torah — like reinterpretation of any sacred text, can point us toward violence and war, or point us toward peace and compassion.

This essay focuses on the Abraham Saga as we traditionally read it on Rosh Hashanah.

But let us look at a story that is not on the traditional readiungs for the days of Awe and Turning — yet perhaps should be, for Yom Kippur. It provides a healing for the tales of Rosh Hashanah.

Abraham's sons Isaac and Ishmael come together to bury him (Genesis 25: 9-11). Indeed, only in this passage are they named together as "Abraham's sons," as if to teach us that they became truly his sons — and together — only by joining in their grief (or relief? or both?).   Read more »