Letters to the Editor - July/August 2010   

Tikkun Magazine July/August 2010

A NOTE ON LETTERS TO THE EDITOR:

We welcome your responses to our articles. Send your letters to the editor to Letters@Tikkun.org. Please remember, however, not to attribute to Tikkun views other than those expressed in our editorials. We email, post, and print many articles with which we have strong disagreements, because that is what makes Tikkun a location for a true diversity of ideas. Tikkun reserves the right to edit your letters to fit available space in the magazine.

 

 

SECULARISM VS. RELIGION?

I have read with interest the winsome statement of Bruce Ledewitz (Tikkun, March/April 2010) on the future of secularism. It may or may not be true, as he says, that "the number of nonbelievers in the world will have increased dramatically." Without counting heads, what matters is that such secular thought is indeed a live, credible alternative to established faith traditions for many people. I like very much his generous notion that the thought and faith of secularists may indeed impinge on the nature of faith, for he offers what I would term "an ecumenical secularism."

There is no reason to think, however, that the vitality of lively faith traditions will shrivel or die. Here I do not refer to obscurantist fideism or to the institutional structures that beset all traditions, not least the Roman Catholic Church at the moment. Rather I refer to critical faith that is, for many, theologically compelling and that can hold its own in an intellectual engagement with critical secularism. Obviously uncritical faith and uncritical secularism cannot take each other seriously.

I imagine that, given a critical faith tradition and given critical secularism of the kind Ledewitz champions, we may anticipate an ongoing critical engagement that is not about winning or losing, but is an engagement whereby all parties continue to rethink and reformulate. Surely it is true, as Ledewitz anticipates, that secularism will impact faith, but influence that runs in the other direction may also be acutely important. I hope that this other kind of secularism can get us past the dismissive silliness of Dawkins and company. I submit that serious secularists may take note of the analysis of Terry Eagleton, a nonbeliever who in fact understands the claims of Christian faith, who makes the specific case that Christian faith appeals because it deals with the "scum of the earth." That is, the credibility of this faith is not in its intellectual force but in its practice of a "preferential option for the poor" that is deeply grounded in a theological affirmation. The tired categories of nineteenth-century quarrels, as Ledewitz knows, help none of us, whether rendered by secularists or by fideists. I welcome Ledewitz's largeness of spirit and expect to be fruitfully engaged in the ongoing work that matters to those situated in both the narrative of the secular and the narrative of faith. Both narratives, at their best, refuse reduction to the generic and summon to the specificity of time, place, and neighbor.

Thanks for publishing the piece by Ledewitz.

Walter Brueggemann

Cincinnati, OH

Bruce Ledewitz Responds:
It is a fortunate secularist whose work is read by Professor Walter Brueggemann, America's foremost interpreter of the Hebrew Bible. I agree with Professor Brueggemann that the road of influence between religion and secularism must run in both directions. Terry Eagleton is indeed an example of that influence. I would add the influence of Reinhold Niebuhr's Christian realism on American foreign and domestic policy and Karl Barth's letter to Swiss trade unionists in 1911, in which he spoke of "the inherent connection between Jesus and socialism." I would include Professor Brueggemann himself in this connection, with his biblically grounded teaching about the capacity for surprise in the heart of history.

My hesitance has to do with something deeper in the biblical tradition. Professor Brueggemann's entire life has been the exemplification of Israel's encounter with the living God. This encounter is so vibrant in the Hebrew Bible as to have no concomitant in secularism. Indeed, that empty space, where God dwells in the faith traditions—whether they are literally theistic or not—might be said to reflect the essence of secularism. No one has found a way yet to bridge that gulf of significance and meaning.

Professor Brueggemann might say that the reminder of that empty space is precisely the contribution that religion makes to secularism. If so, I fear it is a reminder that can only emphasize the loss that secularism has experienced. I am not a secularist by choice and so I feel that loss particularly.

REACHING FOR THE MOON

After reading Reaching for the Moon, in the March/April 2010 issue of Tikkun, I felt the moon had not really been reached for. This article, by Graeme Wend-Walker, had fallen far short of my lunar expectations.

Graeme cites a true-life story of a boy, now a man, who had been beaten by his father in Turkey. Why? For telling his father what he had heard in school that day: "the Americans have sent an airship far into the sky, and its men have walked on the moon."

The father accuses the boy of "lying and blaspheming" but the boy most certainly was not lying. His father could have easily checked with his son's teacher. Then the old man would have learned his son had told the truth about what he'd heard in school that day.

The part about blaspheming isn't really that much harder to debunk. The father had only read one book in his life—the Qur'an. Apparently, he had no familiarity with classics of Islam that expand on its basic doctrines. In fact, the father himself could be described as heretical at worst (or sentimental at best) when he states, "The moon...is the face of God's shining light." The face of God? Does the old man imagine he sees the face of God? If so, then how could he explain the "blemishes" on this face, pockmarked with craters?

The father continues: "I see beauty not possible for anyone but God to create, and magnificence no person nor thing can ever soil. [The moon is not] a rock for climbing."

Is the Earth itself not beautiful? And yet men have walked on its face. So why does the father have a problem with men walking on the face of a dead moon and not the face of our living Earth which was created as a home for man?

This story deserved a different ending. The son returns to Turkey and receives an apology from his father. It seems the father traveled outside of Turkey and made pilgrimage to Mecca. Talking to other Muslims, he hears that men have indeed walked on the face of the moon. In fact, these more worldly Muslims are shocked to hear the father had beaten his son nearly senseless in defense of his own idolatry.

Perhaps the father was unduly influenced by the cult of moon worship, which predates Islam but has had its influence on that faith. It's too bad the article makes no mention of the symbolism of the moon within Islam.

Steven Searle

via email

Graeme Wend-Walker Responds:
My students sometimes have difficulty seeing past the evident injustice of the story. Why should the child kiss the father's hand when he has been wrongly beaten for lying?

The point of this story is not the correction of others, but oneself. One cannot oblige the world to be just, and if one waits for the world to earn one's forgiveness and understanding, one will in all likelihood simply remain angry and ignorant.

Closing one's mind to the father's light does absolutely nothing to diminish the total amount of darkness in the world. If anything, it expands it. This, of course, was the son's experience in real life.

Yes, a book might have been written in which the father learns the nature of his mistake. But what would such a book teach us? That we were right all along to despise him for his ignorance? Could such a book even begin to correct the father? It would never be read by him. 

It is naïve, too, to suppose that the father could somehow have been corrected by rational argument. Had he "checked with the teacher," it is likely he would only have been outraged by him, too; I can imagine him withdrawing his son from school permanently.

The best chance the father had of learning anything at all was through the son's example, in which a genuine desire to know "all this great world could teach him" overcomes the egoistic impulse to demonstrate that what one already believes is right.

SACRED EVOLUTION

As an observant Jew trained in evolutionary biology, I was first excited then disappointed by Arthur Green's article in your March/April 2010 issue. 

The first problem was Green's assertion that the emergence of science represented progress toward the Divine. The second was his repeated reference to the evolution of "more highly developed" organisms and cultures.

This thinking clearly stems from a progress-oriented historical narrative. Yet both evolutionarily and historically, such a narrative is absurd; animals have been known to evolve from more to less complex, as have cultures. This may seem like a minor quibble, but it is not: The progress model of history is a major intellectual underpinning of imperialism and other poisons. Even Green falls into this trap, offensively dismissing cultures that venerate "primitive tribal gods" as less enlightened than those capable of "greater abstraction and depth of thought."

Just as troubling is Green's deification of the scientific process. All cultures have investigated the nature of the world, and this can be a sacred pursuit. Yet "science" as we know it is the product of a very specific, nature-hating worldview that spiritual progressives and radicals should find repellent. Modern science, as it is taught and practiced, is intrinsically amoral, reductionist, and utilitarian, viewing nature as a dead thing to be dissected and controlled.

Is there a place for evolution in a spiritual narrative? Of course. But I much prefer the parallel stories model proffered by Chara Curtis in her children's book to the "God is Dead; Long Live Science!" theology forwarded by so many authors in the last issue.

Ben Pachano

Tuscon, AZ

DARWINIAN EVOLUTION

In "Sacred Evolution" (Tikkun, March/April 2010) Arthur Green suggests that it is possible to remain faithful to the Darwinian account of evolution by natural selection while also viewing evolution as "a meaningful process" by which God reveals itself within creation. However, natural selection does not easily lend itself to such an imputation of meaningfulness. The Darwinian picture of evolution is that of an essentially random process in which there is no progress or even development, but only brute change. Darwinian evolutionary change is driven by arbitrary facts about relative reproductive fitness and random genetic mutations. Nevertheless, the project of building a sacred interpretation of evolution need not be abandoned. Contemporary evolutionary biology is starting to recognize that Darwinian natural selection is only one of several factors that drive evolution. Much more promising from a religious point of view is work done over the last few decades on self-organizing complex systems. Innovative evolutionary theorists like Brian Goodwin have tried to show how the science of complex systems challenges the neo-Darwinian orthodoxy. I believe that this new science of complexity provides a much better partner than neo-Darwinism for trying to achieve the kind of synthesis between evolution and mystical Judaism that Arthur Green proposes in his article.                                          

Avi Craimer

Montreal, Canada

GOD AND SCIENCE

I enjoyed your recent articles on God (Tikkun, March/April 2010). I would like to share the following from The Urantia Book (p. 42) for your consideration.

"The great mistake of the Hebrew religion was its failure to associate the goodness of God with the factual truths of science and the appealing beauty of art. As civilization progressed, and since religion continued to pursue the same unwise course of overemphasizing the goodness of God to the relative exclusion of truth and neglect of beauty, there developed an increasing tendency for certain types of men to turn away from the abstract and dissociated concept of isolated goodness. The overstressed and isolated morality of modern religion, which fails to hold the devotion and loyalty of many twentieth-century men, would rehabilitate itself if, in addition to its moral mandates, it would give equal consideration to the truths of science, philosophy, and spiritual experience, and to the beauties of the physical creation, the charm of intellectual art, and the grandeur of genuine character achievement.

The religious challenge of this age is to those farseeing and forward-looking men and women of spiritual insight who will dare to construct a new and appealing philosophy of living out of the enlarged and exquisitely integrated modern concepts of cosmic truth, universe beauty, and divine goodness. Such a new and righteous vision of morality will attract all that is good in the mind of man and challenge that which is best in the human soul. Truth, beauty, and goodness are divine realities, and as man ascends the scale of spiritual living, these supreme qualities of the Eternal become increasingly coordinated and unified in God, who is love."

John Morris

via email

ESSAYS ON GOD

Thank you very much for the splendid set of essays on God and the 21st Century. Several are jewels and reward repeated reading. Thanks to the authors for taking the time to concentrate their thoughts.

John W. Weiser

Kentfield, CA

CONTRIBUTORS TO THE GOD ISSUE

The articles were good reading and I enjoyed the different, yet unifiable views.

I am always somewhat disappointed when I am finished reading a group of articles (in this case, on "God and the 21st Century"), only to find that all of the articles are written by already published authors, or by a professor of theology at some university, or someone who is a prominent theologian out of the past, and none representing any ordinary, everyday people—those who are from other walks of life, yet have as much, and maybe more, knowledge as a theologian by degree.

To get a good cross section of views and experiential knowledge, you need those of a variety of life walks, professions, or no profession. I strongly believe that magazines such as yours, and others, cater to these theologians and professors because of the "prestige" and do not give the ordinary, non-professional person the opportunity to be published. I am sure there are plenty of people who speak from experiential knowledge, sometimes worth far more than head knowledge, yet they are so seldom heard.

How about being a little more liberal and not so conservative as to who you publish? It might surprise you.

K. Perkins

Florida

SCIENCE AND RELIGION

In response to all the authors who contributed to the special section "G-d and the 21st Century" (Tikkun, March/April 2010), I am writing this letter to the editor. As a psychologist and poet/writer, I appreciate the wisdom of both science and religion. But as a former professor told me, "Science cannot answer the really significant questions we need to ask." Historically, science and religion have provided human beings with divergent wisdom. In recent years, however, the separate domains have converged. This convergence, I believe, is a positive, exciting development and in coming years, I look forward to the shared wisdom and discoveries of science and religion. On the other hand, I believe there are serious limitations to scientific knowledge.

I have called myself a theist, agnostic, and atheist at different stages of my life. In other words, I have struggled with my faith throughout my life. Yet always, I have been a seeker of the truth—especially spiritual and religious truth. I continue to search for and struggle to understand Hashem, my G-d. But what is the truth?

I share certain beliefs, attitudes, and emotions with all the authors who contributed to the special section "G-d and the Twenty-First Century." I am awestricken and humbled by the grandeur and beauty of this vast universe. Like these authors, I am inspired and spiritually transformed by Nature, with all its sundry laws. Unlike some of these authors, I believe that G-d exists.

I agree with Arthur Green that evolution is sacred. But I do not limit G-d to Being or "the life force that dwells within the universe." I do not believe that G-d is Nature and nothing more.

Rabbi Green states: "I do not affirm a Being or a Mind that exists separate from the universe and acts upon it intelligently and willfully." He adds: "My theological position is that of a mystical panentheist, one who believes that G-d is present throughout all of existence, that Being or Y-H-W-H underlies and unifies all that is." He identifies "G-d," "the One," and "Being" with nature. "The only means this One has in this process of self-manifestation are those of natural selection and its resulting patterns of change and growth."

Rabbi Green believes that "the coming to be of ‘higher' or more complex forms of life, and eventually of humanity, is not brought about by the specific and conscious planning of what is sometimes called ‘intelligent design.' But neither is it random and therefore inherently without meaning. It is rather the result of an inbuilt movement within the whole of being, the underlying dynamism of existence striving to be manifest ever more fully in minds that it brings forth and inhabits, through the emergence of increasingly complex and reflective selves. I think of that underlying One in immanent terms, a being or life force that dwells within the universe and all its forms, rather than a Creator from beyond who forms a world that is ‘other' and separate from its own Self. This One—the only One that truly is—lies within and behind all the diverse forms of being that have existed since the beginning of time; it is the single Being (as the Hebrew name Y-H-W-H indicates) clothed in each individual being and encompassing them all."

I believe that G-d exists. I recommend that some of the classical arguments for G-d's existence be re-examined. Specifically, I suggest we look at the cosmological argument and the teleological argument again. In the cosmological argument, a finite universe is assumed. With this assumption, philosophers of religion have concluded that there must be a first unmoved mover, a first uncaused cause, an unexplained explainer. William James Earle (1992) points out in his "Introduction to Philosophy" the implication of an infinite universe. "This still leaves open the question of whether even an infinite universe, with no temporal starting point, requires an explanation for its existence."

Although philosophers of religion have argued that the teleological argument (the argument from design) is highly questionable, I recommend we look at it again. Earle (1992) points out that "the postulation of a ‘Great Architect' of Nature (with the attributes of omniscience and omnipotence) does not help to explain how nature has solved its design problems. Indeed, nature—including all biological organisms—does not seem like the product of top-down design. One reason for thinking this is that nature displays as much conflict as harmony."

However, I suggest that the Big Bang Theory cannot fully explain the complex universe. In a similar vein, the processes of evolution and natural selection cannot completely explain, I believe, the complex beings, especially human beings, who live on earth. Furthermore, the dynamic, intricate laws of nature remain unexplained.

In his article entitled "The Testimony of Faith to the Ultimate Origin," Hans Küng states: "Science can neither confirm nor refute what the two accounts of Genesis proclaim as their clear message: in the beginning of the world is G-d. So it is not ‘in the beginning was the Bang,' but ‘in the beginning was the word, the will, and there was light; there was energy, matter, space, and time.'"

Küng explains the meaning of "Creation of Space and Time from Nothing." He points out that "Nothingness must not be confused either with the ‘vacuum' of modern particle physics, whose ‘fluctuations' perhaps stand at the beginning of our universe, and which is in no way a nothing, but a something. What is meant rather is absolute nothing, which excludes any material cause in the act of creation. Creation ‘from nothing' is the philosophical and theological expression of the fact that the world and human beings along with space and time owe themselves solely to G-d and not to another cause." Küng states that "nothing compels us to this faith." He points out that people freely choose this faith. Once they make this choice, they are spiritually transformed.

I believe that creation ex nihilo—from nothing—points toward the existence of a Creator. We human beings cannot logically explain creation from absolute nothing. I suggest that the atheist bears the burden of providing a scientific explanation for creation from nothing. Some might argue that a rudimentary form of physical matter already existed at the moment of creation. In response to their assertion, I would ask: "How did this rudimentary form of physical matter come into being?" While science can only explain an immediate physical cause for creation, religion can point toward ultimate causation.

I believe that G-d exists. He is an unknowable G-d. And yet I believe He is Loving Consciousness. He knows me and I seek to know Him. The kabbalists say that "G-d is one, G-d is incorporeal (that is, G-d doesn't have a body), G-d is omnipresent, G-d is omnipotent, G-d is omniscient, G-d is eternal, G-d is perfect, G-d is neither male nor female." I do not know the attributes of G-d. But I experience the miracle and sacredness of life. The human brain is a miracle. Consciousness and Existence are miracles and point toward G-d. All life is sacred. All things—living and non-living—are holy, for they contain the divine sparks of G-d. 

My faith is not absolute. Yet even as I continue to search for Hashem, my G-d, I choose to believe that He exists. I thank the authors who have written about G-d in this issue of Tikkun. I have read each article at least once. And I plan to read all of them again. All of us share a beautiful, poetic, and transformative vision of G-d, even those authors who do not believe in the existence of G-d. I believe we have spiritually transformed each other by sharing our creative ideas about G-d. Thus, I suggest we have participated in the rituals of change. In this holy metamorphosis, we have experienced, perhaps, a sacred evolution.

Dr. Mel Waldman

Brooklyn, NY

ENTRENCHING ANTI-SEMITISM

As his article in the May/June 2010 issue of Tikkun ("Are Israeli Policies Entrenching Anti-Semitism Worldwide?") attests, Tony Klug is part of that broad camp for Israel's security and a two-state solution that I also inhabit. He also shares with me an iconoclastic idea: that today's Jew-hatred is more about the televised and webcast views of Arab suffering at the hands of Israeli power than traditional anti-Jewish prejudices.

Where I depart from Dr. Klug is in his apparent conviction that this is entirely the fault of Jews—of the narrow "tribalistic" bond of Jews with their Israeli brethren on the one hand, and of the unconscionable policies of settlement expansion, military brutality, and discriminatory practices of the State of Israel on the other. I don't deny that these play a role, but nowhere does Klug attach any responsibility to Arab terror groups or to the Palestinian Authority's failure to bridge gaps with moderate Israeli peace offers in 2000 and in 2008 (I hasten to add that the PA's negotiating failure was Israel's as well).

Klug's indignation seems especially overwrought in a section asserting that if Israel's harsh deeds were committed by a government of Buddhists or Hindus, the world would similarly denounce them, and there would be repercussions for diasporic Buddhists and Hindus who showed solidarity with their kin (an especially nasty speculation on the part of Klug). One wonders if Klug's been following events in Sri Lanka and Kashmir. Sri Lanka in particular is a close parallel, where a separate ethnic and religious group supported a terrorist movement that fought for independence and was mercilessly pounded into submission last year, almost exactly at the same time that Israel hit back at Gaza with somewhat less violence, inflicting far fewer casualties. (No, I did not support the Gaza offensive.) We have yet to see indignant reactions by the world against the Sinhalese (Buddhist) majority government, not to mention against India's violent occupation over restive Muslims in Kashmir, nor (G-d forbid) against their respective diasporas.

Israel's move to the right can be attributed to the awful fact that the Oslo peace process was mishandled, crippled by Rabin's assassination and Netanyahu's first election, and finally collapsed into the second intifada, costing one thousand Israeli lives; then Israel's unilateral withdrawals from Lebanon and Gaza resulted in more attacks. The causality is not as simple as most Israelis and Jews believe, but the coincidence of events has persuaded them of a direct causation and of total Arab culpability.

A more effective and radical peace posture is not to cast blame on one side, as Klug does, but to patiently unpack historical details as completely and fairly as possible. Israelis and Palestinians together killed the peace process of the 1990s, in a tragic and fateful unfolding of events.

Ralph Seliger

New York, NY

[Stay tuned for Tony Klug's response to Ralph Seliger's letter, which we will publish with our September issue.]

TONY KLUG ON ANTI-SEMITISM

So I take it that Tony Klug thinks that when it comes to anti-Semitism of the third millennium, I'm to blame. I, an American expatriate who became a citizen of the State of Israel sixteen years ago, and now keeps busy mostly by working as a pediatrician and helping to raise three small children. Before reading Mr. Klug's piece I suffered from lingering anxiety that perhaps my life was turning out to be less significant than I'd hoped, but now I know better: the behavior of me and my ilk has become the source of the modern-day version of the moral scourge of western civilization for the past 100 or so generations. Never mind that most of the children I care for in my clinic are Palestinian Arabs. Apparently the fact that I travel through Jerusalem neighborhoods that were annexed to Israel after 1967 on my way to work, and have failed to protest "the Occupation" vigorously enough, make me a part (no ... a cause!) of the problem rather than part of the solution when it comes to modern-day Jew hatred.

I, along with many supporters of Israel who actually live here, vote, and pay taxes, take a pragmatic rather than a moralistic view of the Israeli presence in the West Bank. Better to leave most of it, we say, for the good of our children. On the other hand, the thought of bringing them closer to mortar range is not one we relish either.

Personally, I believe it is rather quixotic to believe that a peace accord with the Palestinian Authority, even under the best of circumstances, is likely to ameliorate Israel's security in any meaningful way in the foreseeable future. Mr. Klug is free to disagree with me on this matter. However, to imply as he does that moral insouciance or callousness are the only plausible explanations for the policies of the current Israeli government is to my mind simply incorrect. But there's more: by insinuating that Israelis who do not share his political views are stained by moral turpitude, perhaps Mr. Klug is lending credence to the same form of bigotry he accuses his co-religionists of fomenting.

Eli Eisenstein

Modiin, Israel

Tony Klug responds:
Dr. Eisenstein's work with his Palestinian Arab patients, not to mention his Israeli Jewish patients, is commendable. However, that has nothing to do with the matter of whether Israeli government policies and behavior toward the Palestinians is contributing to an upsurge in global anti-Semitism. Reducing the issue to a personal level, caricaturing the arguments and resorting to sarcasm are not an answer. They are just another way of evading the vital questions, an indulgence we can no longer afford when the stakes are so high, not just for Israel and the Palestinians but for Jews around the world. 

 

DIVESTMENT 

This is truly a complex issue. It is being viewed as a snapshot of a long relationship. Something must be done, and soon, to avoid a further tragedy. Most of us were excited years ago to discover Zen Buddhism. But we seem to forget that we learned that it is not always appropriate to act/react; sometimes inaction is more appropriate and powerful. Sometimes nothing we can do can be of positive influence. It's humbling and frustrating.

All those who honestly believe that this is the correct and most effective tool when dealing with an abused paranoid (remember even paranoids have enemies)—one who has been threatened and abused for most of his living memory and will, if further threatened and attacked by his only protector—make a difficult, dangerous, perilous decision ... please stand and vote for divestment.

Yoram Getzler

Moshav Aminadav, Jerusalem

RABBIS' LETTER SUPPORTING GOLDSTONE

Do you really believe Israel intentionally targeted civilians, hospitals, schools, etc. with a deliberate intent to cause harm to innocents?

That is how your recently co-signed letter published locally in the Cape Times reads.

I found it quite chilling to read the letter and the remarks it contained; a truly poisonous view for a Rabbi to confirm without a hint of the context of the situation, let alone any comment as to whether the remarks are a one-sided interpretation or not.

Rather than debate the issue of balance and assuming you were simply not able to give proper attention to the Report itself I refer you to an open letter to Judge Goldstone by Trevor Norwitz:

http://www.goldstonereport.org/pro-and-con/48-critics/316-trevor-norvitz-open-letter-to-judge-goldstone-191009

Anthony Goldstein

via email

Rabbi Michael Lerner Responds:
Perhaps you could send me the copy of such a letter. I do not believe that "Israel" intentionally targeted civilian hospitals and schools with intent to cause harm to innocents, nor do I believe I ever signed a letter saying that I believed that. However, I could believe that there is prima facie evidence that some people in the Israeli army did such targeting, and that therefore Israel has an ethical obligation to create a public investigation of these charges, and that Judge Goldstone did Israel and the Jewish people a great service by calling for an impartial public investigation of these charges either by Israel itself, or, if the Israeli government does not respond, then by the International Court. Jews should appear to care about the mistakes of their own army just as much as Americans or South Africans should care about the mistakes of their own armies, and not hide behind the notion that any country is too pure to make these mistakes or have rogue elements in their army who may intentionally act in ways that deserve punishment.

 

RABBI LERNER'S EMAIL ON FORGIVENESS

[Editor's note: if you are not getting Rabbi Lerner's emails, send an email to natalie@tikkun.org and give her your address, phone number, and email address—you can sign up for free to receive occasional letters from Rabbi Lerner and digests from our blog, tikkun.org/daily.]

Your email on forgiveness came at an opportune moment, when I was really triggered and angry with my daughter. I understand everything below and not only practice it but preach it. Still, when something happens that touches the live wire attached to the fuse inside me, my body responds and my mind co-responds, and I just want to scream nasty, mean, vicious things, which then cause me to cry. It's like the wounds and defenses just go haywire inside me.

I'm no saint, no matter how much Compassionate Listening I teach, practice, and preach. I'm human. There must be something one can do with the feelings of complete hot, searing pain?

I work with teen cancer survivors and patients lately. They're told to be positive. The myths abound about not being positive—you can cause the cancer to come back, you can make it worse, you might have caused it in the first place—these are harmful and there is a tyranny of positivity that pervades planet cancer; it doesn't give room for these beautiful people to scream in anger, pain, and frustration and know that all their expressions are not only valid and worthwhile but release pent-up feelings.

I realize that ultimately and essentially we don't want to point our anger, bitterness, and hatred at others—but we need to express it, not just paste it down with positivity. I agree with you and all the wise souls you quote that positivity and forgiveness are crucial to our health and the health of the planet earth, I just wanted to voice this other side as well.

Linda Wolf

Swannanoa, NC

FORGIVE THE NAZIS WHILE YOU'RE AT IT

While we're at it, let's preach forgiveness for the Nazis too. After all it's been over 65 years since they last incinerated Jews. Do you think the Nazis thought they had less compelling reasons to incinerate Jews than Netanyahu & Co. believe they have compelling reasons to massacre Palestinians and use their children for IDF target practice? I think the Nazis and Netanyahu & Co. are equally wrong and guilty of the same thing.

Joseph Barri

via email

Rabbi Michael Lerner Responds:

I totally reject this comparison. The Nazis had an ideology that explicitly said that Jews were inferior beings and ought to be eradicated; Israel has no such ideology in regard to Palestinians. The Nazis sought to murder every living Jew; Israel allows Palestinians living inside the pre-'67 border and to vote and hold positions in the Knesset, and has no program of extermination of Palestinians, no gas chambers, no crematoria. You obviously haven't thought out what the Nazis were really about. I oppose Israel's policies toward Palestinians, but there is no genocide intended. Truth is that Israel would be fine with Palestinians peacefully accepting their powerless position; the Nazis on the other hand, did not want passive Jews, they wanted only dead Jews.

THE VANDALIZATION OF RABBI LERNER'S HOUSE

Rabbi Michael Lerner, publisher and editor of Tikkun Magazine, is a vocal critic of Israeli oppression of Palestinians. He is equally critical of Palestinian attacks on Israelis. Recently his house was attacked by persons who glued posters to his door attacking Lerner personally, and attacking liberals and progressives as being supporters of terrorism and "Islamo-fascism."

Is Rabbi Lerner a victim of terrorism? Let's agree immediately that there are different kinds of terrorism. Terrorism often involves physical violence against random people. Examples are 9/11, or suicide bombers in a sidewalk café in Tel Aviv. But not all violence is terrorist—husbands who murder their wives and then kill themselves are not trying to intimidate anyone. They want to destroy. But terrorist violence does not aim at destruction for its own sake; it has the explicit purpose of instilling fear, to terrify. No one got hurt in the attack on Rabbi Lerner's house, but the point was clearly to send a frightening message: "We know where you live; you better watch yourself and your family." This is terrorism without bodily violence.

Many definitions of terrorism stipulate that intimidation by governments is not terrorist. When police throw their weight around, when the CIA tortures prisoners, when the military sends its airplanes to rain bombs on an enemy city, these are not considered terrorism.

Whether we call government actions terrorist or not matters little. It is important to see that intimidation by inflicting pain and death, or life-threatening serious harm is used by governments as often and as regularly as by its opponents. In its war against the Mexican government, the drug cartels kidnap and kill. They undermine the democratic process, for instance, by killing candidates in elections. The government reciprocates by arresting and torturing suspects.

Here is Sen. Leahy's (D-VT) story about his encounter with drug enforcement police:

"It was about 125 miles from the border. In a car with license plate one on it from Vermont. With little letters underneath it that said U.S. Senate. We were stopped and ordered to get out of the car and prove my citizenship. And I said ‘What authority are you acting under?' and one of your agents pointed to his gun and said ‘That's all the authority I need.' Encouraging way to enter our country!"

Calling Palestinians or the Taliban "terrorists," and withholding that label from the governments that oppose them or from the people who defaced Rabbi Lerner's house obscures the fundamental fact that the most common response to conflict in the world is an attempt to intimidate the opponent. Often that intimidation involves inflicting physical harm on more or less innocent bystanders. Carpet-bombing enemy citizens is a good example of that. At other times, the mere threat of physical harm suffices to intimidate.

The root problem is the universal inclination to respond violently to conflict. In almost any disagreement, someone will try to get his or her way by threatening the other party. The most common response to disagreement is an attempt to intimidate the other in order to make them pliable and get them to yield.

We learn terrorists techniques as children because most adults threaten children: sit still or else..., eat this or else..., go to bed or else.... The examples are endless. By the time we reach adulthood we have learned that the way to resolve disagreements is to threaten the other. In this way children learn to be bullies. The response of adult legislators—who had the same teaching as children—is to pass new laws that threaten bullies with incarceration. Legislators bully the bullies. Responding with violence is a knee-jerk reaction of our governments. It has landed us in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as earlier in Korea and Vietnam. It involved us, as I mentioned in my blog, in the ill-fated "war on drugs." Current government policy to improve failing schools is to punish the teachers by firing them. Will punishing teachers improve our schools?

Calling some of our opponents "terrorists" while refusing to attach that label to our own actions conceals the fact that we too are prone to use violence to intimidate both in our international policies and in response to domestic problems. Whatever the crisis, we look for the guilty party and threaten them. When will we draw the obvious lesson that intimidation rarely solves problems? Or that it always creates new ones?

Surely there are alternatives to bullying, to intimidation, to violence and terrorism. One alternative is an integral part of the Christian message: "Turn the Other Cheek." But that is a hard recommendation to follow.

A more promising response to conflict is to talk it over. Democracy is one form of this approach to conflict resolution. Participating in a democratic system commits one to avoid violent and/or coercive responses to people who have different interests or different ideas. Instead, one promises to have conversations about the disagreement in the hope of settling it by talking it over.

Talking it over can only succeed if participants are flexible, if they are profoundly dedicated to peaceful resolutions of conflict, if they are prepared to examine their own stance critically, and to give a respectful hearing to the views of others. All of this is very difficult.

But it will save untold lives and prevent much suffering.

Richard Schmitt

via email

A NEW STRATEGY FOR THE OBAMA YEARS

I enjoyed Rabbi Lerner's editorial in the May/June 2010 issue of Tikkun on the need for a new progressive strategy for the Obama years. Yes, I believe we progressives must get beyond our feelings of anger and betrayal by expressing them fully. As a psychologist who has studied betrayal trauma for many years, I believe we must go further. We must forgive both ourselves and those we believe have betrayed us.

Betrayal trauma is an almost universal experience. Most of us emerged from childhood feeling betrayed by parents who turned out not to be perfect and we may even have tried unsuccessfully to find that missing "perfect parent" in our adult relationships. Usually we end up feeling betrayed again. Our unhealed betrayal traumas get projected on other authority figures such as Obama when we discover they also are not perfect. The anger from this projection can lead to seeking revenge against the betrayer.

For example, we are seeing Obama's approval rating sink rapidly and incumbents being voted out of office for not fulfilling our unrealistic expectations. Unresolved betrayal trauma can also cause people to view the "good guys" they voted for as the "bad guys." This internal split seems characteristic of many of the "Birthers" and Tea Party folks.

This flip can also lead to cynicism, particularly among the idealistic young people who believed Obama would clean up Washington as he promised. Cynicism and its broken idealism have turned many of these young people off to politics. Others just became paranoid and refuse to trust anything that Obama and members of Congress say or do. Ultimately, there emerges a sense of self-betrayal and people blame themselves for being naïve in trusting Obama or their elected officials to keep their campaign promises.

How can betrayal trauma be healed? Forgiveness requires that we develop compassion for ourselves and the person who we believe betrayed us. If we look closely at any perceived betrayal, a rather one-dimensional view appears of the betrayer (perfect parent) that is anchored in our pattern of unhealed betrayal traumas.

The next step is to redefine the perceived betrayal situation as an opportunity to expand our consciousness by asking, "Who is the betrayer in this situation?" The truth is that unhealed betrayal traumas limit our consciousness. They prevent us from learning anything from a current experience and allow us to perpetuate the cycle of betrayal trauma.

True forgiveness begins by identifying how we contributed to the betrayal and then forgiving ourselves. Feeling compassionate and forgiving toward ourselves then makes it possible to forgive those we believe betrayed us. Without this kind of self-reflective inner work, it is easy to remain angry and distrustful and continue to put a negative spin on any positive achievement of the Obama administration. Until we have a collective experience of true forgiveness, I am afraid we will not be able to create an effective progressive strategy for the Obama years.

Barry K. Weinhold, Ph. D.

Swannanoa, NC

Don't give up on Obama!

You have it a bit wrong (in your September/October 2009 editorial "Has President Obama Abandoned You and His Own Vision of the Caring Society?"). Obama has given up on us. He uses us. He and his administration are similar to the new regime in Orwell's Animal Farm. He defends failure as if it were a success. Do you think he has the potential for being an FDR? Where is his Eleanor? His world is the world of business and politics as usual. He thinks his power and wealth will protect his innocent girls from environmental disaster. His heart is not soft, but some of his words are. His actions are hard and bloody and ignorant and full of Bush. Yes, he is eloquent, even when he talks about "good wars" and Predator drones that kill so impersonally. And it is not just about war crimes and human rights abuses; he does not love or care for the earth and all the beauty of creation. Does he think oil is more important than the health and well being of the ocean?

Obama's heart and motivation are very different than yours, Rabbi Lerner, and those of Tikkun. All that Obama does, he does without heartfulness. He is not a benevolent, altruistic compassionate conserver. Be careful!

Daniel Schwartz

Albuquerque, NM

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

I read Tikkun Daily blogger David Sylvester's essay on historic anti-Semitism in the Catholic Church and, by extension, Europe on your website (http://www.tikkun.org/article.php/20100408203255204). I provide the following thoughts for your consideration in response.

1.  The conflict among the Abrahamic religions is, at root, a lack of faith and confidence in one's beliefs. The more one is unsure of what Truth is, the more one needs to silence or denigrate or eradicate the alternatives. Unsure Jews despise Christians and Muslims. Unsure Christians despise Jews and Muslims. Unsure Muslims despise Christians and Jews. Persons from any of these traditions who are comfortable with their beliefs are self-assured enough to recognize that others may not agree, recognize that absolute certainty on beliefs is relatively rare, and understand that what is accurate will never be known until the Final Analysis anyway. So, in the meantime, one rests comfortably with that ambiguity, realizing that the Transcendent is in there somewhere, probably in one's tradition, but equally plausible elsewhere.

2.  The insecure never get that, and they attempt to eradicate alternatives.

3.  The history of anti-Jewish sentiment in the Catholic Church, like the dispute between Israelis and Palestinians, is at root an unresolved family feud.

4.  In the case of the Catholic Church and the Jewish Tradition, the role/purpose of Jesus is not really certain. While Catholics may think Jesus is the resurrected Moshiach Yisrael, the Jewish people do not agree. But, really, no one knows. They just make assumptions based on their beliefs, which, if they are not solid because time has so passed on that no one has concrete factual evidence, creates the problem of #1 above.

5.  Then, each, not being certain of the ultimate Truth, early on engaged in the game of mutual exclusion and excommunications reinforced by denigration and assault. Christians were expelled from the tribal traditions of the synagogues. Jews, in turn, were expelled from the expanding community of the churches. Each castigates the other except, history being what it is, one group became more prevalent and powerful, thus able to make its own exclusionary and excommunicatory behavior more virulent over time as it expanded. Had history been different, the positions might have changed but the dynamic would not.

6.  In the case of the Palestinians, it is all about whom, metaphorically speaking, Abraham loved more: Sarah and Isaac or Hagar and Ishmael. Using the adjective "bastard" before the noun son, in Hagar's case, evinces a view of the question just answered. So, it goes on.

7.  This sibling rivalry, combined with lack of confidence in beliefs, creates the combustion that is the problem in Europe, America, and the Middle East unless and until there is some kind of recognition of the issue and, more importantly, an understanding of where it comes from and may end up.

8.  Then, there is the problem of recognizing fault, be it personal or institutional, and taking responsibility for that fault. This is very difficult to do when one lacks confidence, real confidence, in one's beliefs in the face of an endemic family feud.

9.  Justification by denigration and exclusion creates walled fortresses in the mind and soul that slowly, over time, shut off and shut down the ability to see beyond the fortress. That is the essence of this problem. The solution, I think, is confidence in belief, certainty of the uncertainty, comfort with others who see things differently as opposed to seeing different things, and cooperation that encourages others with the same concerns to reach down and examine, extract, and eradicate their own fortress of uncertainty.

Joseph K. Witmer, Esq.

Harrisburg, PA

DEALING WITH THE TEA PARTY

Strategy must be commensurate with capability. What can Left progressives do? (A question raised in Michael Lerner's May/June 2010 editorial.) A survey of tea partiers revealed that slightly more than half liked Palin for president. The rest were Libertarian supporters of Ron Paul. Outreach to the latter, with some humility rather than an "I'll straighten these people out" attitude, may get them to cooperate on important political work. After all, we too have been "taxed enough already." About half of our taxes go to pay for past or current wars (War Resisters League analysis).

Approached correctly, some Libertarians can be helped to understand a progressive critique of the economy and a strategy for changing the political situation in the U.S.

Libertarians have some understanding of economics, even if they disagree with progressives on specific remedies. Those I've reached out to can be persuaded that the old debate about government versus corporations being the exclusive source of evil is futile. I've gotten two of them to see that there is really only one group of "monopolists," some of the members of which go through a revolving door between being in the spotlight of government and the shadows of private enterprise. (For a progressive economy critique constructed to appeal to Libertarians see the book Cornered by Barry Lynn.) Libertarians can be persuaded that monopolists take advantage of the rest of "us," people who play fair. Explicit anti-Semitism must be confronted with admission that one is Jewish or just can't accept that position. But one is more likely to hear some expression of producerism. That is the thesis that some people are more productive than others, and deserve rewards that others get undeservedly. Producerism is sometimes racism, ethnically scrubbed. It is important at this point not to jump down the throat of the person who expresses this but to explain invidious comparison and how it is self-defeating, because it alienates potential allies. The monopolists want to have whites versus blacks versus Hispanics, women versus men, employees versus those on food stamps, etc.

A considerable effort is being made by the monopolists today (such as Pete Peterson and numerous talking heads on TV) to persuade us that the U.S. is spending too much money and that entitlements must be cut. I've found it possible to persuade Libertarians that they shouldn't believe this rhetoric, because it is false and self-defeating. Libertarians I know understand that the U.S. remains the richest and strongest market economy. Its government and entitlement programs can't go bankrupt (unless to cease to exist ) since it can create its own money. They can understand that inflation hurts banks and bondholders who lend long into it, and helps debtors (including themselves). Even if the U.S. gradually inflates its way to diminishing debt, our foreign creditors won't stop selling us sneakers or Toyotas. They would face mass unemployment, maybe revolution. They can't hurt us by dumping our bonds. Even massively dumped bonds, that discount purchasers thence earn higher interest upon, do not thereby become like adjustable rate loans. We would owe face value, if not rolled over, not more. Any "crowding out" of our needed social expenditures by our interest payments can be made up by cutbacks in our empire maintenance expenditures. Bring the bases at Okinawa and Ramstein (etc.) back to the U.S. Let them be distributed along our borders and repurposed to cope with immigration, drug smuggling and environmental disasters to come.

A couple of America's problems have gotten so bad that strongly conservative and Left progressive people agree basically what must be done. The two groups agree that the major parties are out of control. We agree that the Federal Reserve and "too big to fail" banks also must be brought under control to serve the economy as a whole, not their own interests. We agree that our costly foreign entanglements, 724 overseas military bases and our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan must be reduced much more rapidly than Republicans and Democrats are willing to do it. We could probably agree on at least preliminary steps to lessen them, such as cease fire unless fired upon and withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan and democratizing the Federal Reserve Board with stakeholders from interests other than finance.

Given: the major parties have become two big gangs of bagmen, monopolist special interest money-collecting infrastructures (unlike this media-invented "Tea Party"). No candidate can get the majors' nomination for a federal office without making promises to support those special interests, no matter what they say to the public. On this basis, progressives and libertarians should be able to agree to a strategy that weakens the major parties or pulls each toward greater commitment to solving the two problems agreed upon. We can agree to publicly state (for now) that we will never vote for a major party nominee! The strategy for conservatives would be to write in the name of any Libertarian candidate for the office. If the voter is a Left progressive, write in the name of any Green Party candidate. Then, after any primary, re-register as Independent. Sufficient uncertainty that a major party nominee can win should diminish interest group contributions to the point that more candidates will start taking public financing and being more independent or increase the chance that third party candidates will become competitive.

There's a risk that some liberal centrists will lose office. But there are several possible rewards: neoconservative Republican "centrists" may also lose, the two-party system may open to third party candidates, and to greater independence from special interest money. Maybe public campaign financing can finally advance.

Robert Cogan

via email