This Holiday Season

by Michael Lerner

In past years our primary message around the Holidays has been: don't turn Christmas, Chanukah, Eid, Kwanzaa, etc. into orgies of material consumption. Celebrations of materialism corrupt our children's values. They equate "caring" with "how much are you willing to spend on person x or y." Of course this creates depression and feelings of worthlessness in the minds of many who can't afford to spend at the level that the media portrays as "normal for an average family." In short, such materialism undermines the spiritual intent of the holidays.

To enhance the spiritual meaning of these holidays, we've created a special location on our website (www.tikkun.org/holidays) where we will publish the best suggestions for how spiritual progressives can celebrate not only the December holidays, but all the holidays of all the religious and secular communities, including Easter, Passover, Shavuot, July 4, Ramadan, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and many more. We are just starting to accumulate the best ideas on how to reclaim these holidays and make them spiritually deep for the people who celebrate them. We invite you to email us materials that you think ought to be posted on that site. Feel free to send us your detailed guidelines about how to spiritually enhance whatever holidays (from every tradition) you'd like to see deepened or enriched (and sometimes, as in the case of July 4, transformed in focus from a narrower nationalistic, chauvinistic, tribal, or fundamentalist approach to a more universalistic, humanistic, or God-centered approach). Send these to RabbiLerner@tikkun.org.

Meanwhile, because Tikkun and the Network of Spiritual Progressives are suffering from the economic meltdown, we would greatly appreciate it if -- in the case that you decide you do want to spend money for gifts -- you'd consider buying people in your life gift subscriptions to Tikkun magazine (special rate of $25/sub). Or buy them a membership in the NSP (we'll take them at the lowest income level: $40 per gift membership) or a low-cost $100 registration for our D.C. conference June 11-14. The focus of the conference is "Supporting Obama to BE the Obama We Voted For -- not the inside-the-Beltway pragmatist whose compromises are undermining his popularity and demobilizing social change forces." Speakers will include Sister Joan Chittister; former New York Times correspondent Christopher Hedges; Rev. Jim Winkler, chair of the Board of Church and Society of the Methodists; Jonathan Granoff; and many more). Please send us a list of gift recipients with their addresses and emails, and we will send them a gift card announcing your gift in time for the holidays (send this to kay@tikkun.org and put "Holiday Gift Subs" in the subject heading, or send a check to 2342 Shattuck Ave, #1200, Berkeley, CA 94704).