B'reshit

Days High & Holy, Days of Awe & Beauty: Join Us for Holy-Day Retreats at Elat Chayyim

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow | 7/26/2010

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 »

The 21st Century: In God's earthquake, Domination—or Community?

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow | 1/17/2010

[When I first began working on this essay, the word “earthquake” had not yet been swallowed up by the catastrophe in Haiti, and I could use the word to mean the combination of religious, political, sexual, ecological, and economic changes — often labeled Modernity — that have upended the kinds of societies that had shaped our world for the last two thousand years.   Read more »

"Avatar," Exodus, & Kabbalah

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow | 3/10/2010

The film AVATAR weaves together what we usually call the spiritual and the political. Indeed, whether its director realized it consciously or not, AVATAR echoes two major strands of religious wisdom that began in Jewish thought but have had deep influence on cultures far beyond the boundaries of Jewish peoplehood. The two strands of ancient wisdom are “archetypal” — that is, they appear over and over again in human thought because they arise in human experience and yearning — with or without conscious transmission of the stories.   Read more »

Preserving the Eyes of the Universe

By admin | 9/8/2009

Adapted from Rosh Hashanah Sermon on Responsibility, Ecology, and Humankind’s Role in the Universe
by Rabbi David J. Cooper, 1 Tishrey 5768, September 12, 2007 Cooper is the rabbi of Kehilla Community Synagogue in Berkeley-Oakland, California.   Read more »

Ma'asei V'raisheet — The Works of Creation

By Anonymous | 7/22/2009

By Reuven Goldfarb
[This is a poem about Creation — and it’s based on a mispronunciation of the first word of B’raisheet (or B’raishis), which, in his haste and in a rush of enthusiasm, my friend Marc ben Shabbat, who certainly knew better, pronounced “voracious.” I took that word and invented alternate readings for all the words in the primal verse and then continued, with fewer distortions, to interpret the remainder of Ma’aseh V’raisheet — the Works of Creation. — RG ]

MA’ASEI V’RAISHEET — THE WORKS OF CREATION   Read more »

Torturing the Image of God

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow | 4/28/2009

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 »

A Jewish Perspective on Abrahamic Wisdoms: Jacob, Joshua, Jesus, the Talmud, & Mohammed

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow | 3/24/2009

by Arthur Waskow

[This article is extracted from Rabbi Waskow’s remarks to a Peace Gathering of Christians convoked in January 2009 by the Historic Peace Churches (Quakers, Mennonites, and Brethren), which also invited a small number of Jews and Muslims to act as participant-observers and commentators. This transcript of his talk is appearing in the Friends Journal. Copyright © 2009 by Arthur Waskow.]

I begin with a renewed version of the blessing traditionally offered before learning Torah—sharing wisdom—together:

Blessed are You, the Breath of Life, the Inter-breathing Spirit of the universe, who breathes into us the wisdom to know that we become holy by breathing together, by shaping our breath into words, and by shaping our words so that they aim towards wisdom.   Read more »

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