When I know that this is what is happening right now and the next moment will be different, as long as I do not resist it, a space opens. This is the space of freedom which activates my intelligence, my free will.
2011
The Missing Ingredient
|
It would appear, however, that Rabbi Papa was perhaps not really completely empathetic with the plight of his community. He was the head rabbi, so of course it was expected of him that he would take some kind of action, like decreeing a day of fasting and prayer. But social activism requires more than a functionary response to society’s maladies.
2011
Outrage at Suffering, Awe at the Universe
|
Awe awakens us to the world. To stay alive as activists, we need to guard against constricting our lives in the face of immense political challenges and acting out of mere ideological habit.
2011
In Celebration of the Mustard Seeds
|
Melanie Klein says the more resentment grows, the less room is left for gratitude, and the more gratitude grows, the less impetus toward resentment. I believe it. I believe it! I’ve experienced it.
2011
Neti Neti: A Manifesto to End Religious Violence
|
Religions are intrinsically human; we make them in our own image, after our own likeness, often to conjure divine sanction for what we know is evil. Religion isn’t evil, but it is dangerous.
2011
An Age In Need of Prophets
|
When Tikkun was founded, its name made clear its intent to repair and establish a means by which the values of tikkun olam would have their moral and ethical effect on not only the Jewish community but also the larger American and global ones.
2011
Descending from Mount Moriah: A Reflection on Interfaith Study
|
We offer interfaith courses to our rabbinical and ministerial students because we believe that contemporary clergy working in an increasingly interconnected world should possess knowledge of other religious traditions and the skills to interact constructively across religious lines.
2011
Everything Is Alive
|
“The affirmation of the divine unity aspires to reveal the unity in the world, in humankind, among nations, and in the entire content of existence, without any dichotomy between action and theory, between reason and the imagination. Even the dichotomies experienced will be unified through a higher enlightenment, which recognizes their aspect of unity and compatibility” (2:411).
2011
President Obama: Keep Faith
|
The president’s Christian faith compels him to seek common ground with his political opponents in our shared desire to provide a secure and prosperous life for the nation, especially for those who are poor and vulnerable. It requires him to seek strength in our diversity, to explore solutions that bridge the partisan divide.
2011
Bridging the Secular-Religious Divide
|
Secularism is growing in the United States, especially among the young. Perhaps 15 percent of the population already have no religious affiliation. While many among the nonchurched profess traditional views of God, it is not clear that such beliefs will remain vibrant without institutional support.
2011
Apologies and Advice: A Letter to Younger Activists
|
Let’s get the apology over with first. Like everyone in my generation (those who lived through the upheavals of the sixties), I feel dreadful about the world we’re leaving you. I myself don’t plan on leaving it soon, but we had the chance to leave you a much better springboard, and we failed.
2011
The Unprincipled Nature of Judaism
|
The most important principle in Judaism is the awareness that there is no such thing as “the most important principle” in Judaism. All of its teachings are equally as vital, and if you fulfill any one of them, taught the second-century Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, you have fulfilled all of them (Midrash Mishlei 1:17).
2011
A Memo on the Arc of the Universe
|
I’m struggling with this right now, and I’ve struggled with it for thirty years … self-care and soul care and close-circle-of-friends care are not distractions from our work for tikkun olam or the kingdom of God, but rather are integral to it.
2011
In the Flickering Light of Theories
|
This is what tikkun means to me: asking who else is out there in the dark and what they are finding in their own pool of light, and how their torches are working for them.
26.1 Winter 2011
Tikkun at 25
|
Those of us who founded and shaped Tikkun for the past twenty-five years have been solidly committed to supporting the manifestation of the Spirit of God in this world. In our view that means advancing the possibilities of a world based on love; kindness; generosity; individual and collective freedom; mutual recognition; thanksgiving; pleasure; joy; the evolution of scientific knowledge, spiritual wisdom, understanding of self and others, and deep levels of individual and global consciousness; the triumph of social justice; peace; equality; material well-being; environmental sanity; mutual forgiveness and caring for each other; and awe, wonder, and radical amazement at the grandeur and mystery of the universe. Our goal of tikkun-ing the world (healing, evolving and transforming it), has a long tradition in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and in other spiritual and religious communities as well. We are merely one contemporary embodiment of that tradition. The Promise, Successes, and Problems of the NSP
Knowing that people often find that their highest progressive ideals cannot be expressed freely in their various religious communities, or at least not acted upon in those institutions, we decided seven years ago to create the Network of Spiritual Progressives (NSP) to be the educational and activist arm of Tikkun.