Burning Man, Desire, and the Culture of Empire

To a consciousness formed in gentle deciduous lands, the vista is unimaginably bleak: the toxic, colorless void of a Nevada alkali lake bed, a blank white canvas the size of Rhode Island, flat as water and dry as parchment on which there lives nothing visible to the naked eye, remnant of the Pleistocene stretching to a barely visible horizon of tawn and purple mountains. At this moment of the American Empire’s decline, this science fiction setting is home for our premier arts festival, anointed by the Los Angeles Times as the “current hot ticket” for academic study—the landscape of Burning Man.

The Difference Between Holy and Nice: The Religious Counterculture

Polite. What could possibly be more antithetical to the heart of religion than the cool reserve of social propriety implied by that word? We’ve all seen it—the chilly, respectful friendliness; the ginger embrace that somehow reminds us of our separateness; the newcomers ignored at an Oneg Shabbat or coffee hour. We try to solve the problem through deputizing official badge-wearing “welcomers” or offering trainings in “hospitality” and, while some progress is sometimes made, the congregation is rarely transformed by these ex post facto measures into a community as religiously loving as the one described by Jasleen.

Privacy and Personhood in a World Without Mystery

It will not do merely to complain about the widespread and outrageous invasions of privacy that citizens of the developed world constantly suffer, nor to legislate against them one by one. If we really want to fix the privacy problem, we have to identify the underlying shift in society’s attitudes towards what it means to be a person.

Rethinking the Doctrines of the Trinity and the Holy Spirit

I was sitting on the balcony of a high-rise hotel in Southern California. The Pacific Ocean sparkled under a smog-free sky. A rabbi we’ll call Sol was enjoying the view with me. “Sol, we’ve become good enough friends now that I can ask you something kind of personal, right?” I asked. “Sure. Anything.” “What do you think of Jesus? I’m not asking that as a test question or as a prelude to an evangelistic presentation,” I explained. “I’m just curious.”

Levinas, Hitlerism, and New Atheist Revisionism

In the immediate aftermath of September 11, 2001, it became fashionable to view religion primarily as a source of strife. Future historians may view the rise of an intolerant new antireligious movement, New Atheism, as part of the generalized overreaction to the horror of September 11—an overreaction that also included the use of torture and mass detention, the abandonment of trial by jury, and the misguided American invasion of Iraq.

Healing Our World

For years, we danced with the idea of a bar mitzvah. Thirteen is a milestone for all Jewish children, and I was determined that our son would take part. I knew he could learn a few simple prayers and songs; he has amazing memory skills, not uncommon for children with autism. Still, we worried. What if a large crowd unnerved him?

Easter Sacrifice of the Lambs

Rabbi Lerner’s Note: The argument presented below as a critique of Christian practice is equally applicable to Jewish and Muslim practice as well as to the tens of millions of secularists who do the exact same thing but without giving it a religious sanction. EASTER: SACRIFICE OF THE LAMBS… Inbox
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Ruth Eisenbud homerific1990@hotmail.com

11:09 PM (10 hours ago)

roast leg of lamb: traditional offering for Easter

EASTER: SACRIFICE OF THE LAMBS… While Christianity claims to have done away with the ‘burnt offering’ or sacrifice of the Old Testament, it has not:.  

“Because Jesus is symbolized as a Lamb…and that is like one of His names or titles….He IS the Lamb of God…..Who takes away the sin of the world….and in “type”…He is the Lamb Who was provided for the burnt offering…..” http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090413075531AAE6UGx

 

There are several problems with this statement.

Night Stop

“He has only his open hand and his sweetly accusatory Bless you. We have only to turn our heads and he’s gone….”