2011

Do Not Hold Back: Notes from a Gay Congregation

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As queer and trans Jews, as Jews of color, as working-class Jews, we have often had experiences within Jewish communities that amplify that distrust, pushing us out of communities and into isolation. Too many Jewish communities across the country are moving further to the right in their politics, and those of us on the left are feeling the danger of this shift.

2011

Truth

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When I began living as a woman, my children’s world split open. As the truth of my gender collided with the truth of their pain at losing the man they loved, it seemed there was no world we could inhabit together — until love taught us that no matter what gender I expressed, I would always be their father.

2011

Prophetic Voices Should Be Bold

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I think it is wrong for the voices of moderation to be constrained by an idealistic sense of duty to absolute accuracy, balance, and openness to opposing views. Hmm, ouch, that was hard to write; are we not the people who “eat brown rice and are always nice”?

2011

How the Light Gets In

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In truth, we all have a deep longing for holiness, even those whose actions seem to belie this need — those for whom words like community and justice have become distorted and degraded. It is only bitter disappointment in the absence of the holy that makes human longing turn to movements like the Tea Party, a movement clearly fueled by anger and divisiveness.

2011

Polarities to the Rescue

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What is your passion? Find it — or let it find you — and, from that ecstasy, act to make the world better, more just, more joyous. It is only from such ecstasy, from such an energy-producing position outside of (ex) the fixed place (stasis) of things, that tikkun comes about.

2011

A Note from the Sunny Side

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I have left it to others to give well-deserved tributes to Tikkun magazine. As for me, I only signed on to be publisher because I knew the editor — my brother, Michael. It turned out to be a very smart choice.

Articles

Balancing Activism and the Cosmic

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The death of my father last April caused me to reflect anew on where we agreed and where we disagreed. When I was a college student, we would debate capitalism and socialism. Over the years I came to realize that people would be much better off under the capitalist system he envisioned than under any of the capitalist or socialist realities today.

2011

Hope and Healing – A Moment of Mishnah

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It isn’t enough to assert that dry goes with dry and wet goes with wet. What happens when life is more complex than our sorrow and our fear might suggest? What about when something that once worked becomes broken in the course of its use?

2011

Keep Your Eye on the Jewish People

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The Jewish people is both world-weary and world-loving, contains within it racists and humanists, Jews by birth and by choice, converted and unconverted, secularists and fundamentalists, first-language Jews and third-language Jews, Jews by marriage, by thought, by inclination, and even Jews by hate who valorize violence against demonic enemies (God help them), those who flee Jewish destiny, and those who embrace it as privilege, and so on and on.