An activist reviews Waging Peace by David Hartsrough
32.4 Fall
Tikkun Recommends
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Jewish Renewal, a new movement that emerged in the last decades of the 20th century, has become one of the most significant developments in Judaism in the lives of thousands of American and Israeli Jews. Sometimes described as neo-Hasidism by its proponents, and New Age Judaism by its detractors, this movement has produced a fusion of spiritual intensity in its prayers, astounding creativity in its theology, and a joyous renewal of the love-oriented aspects of Judaism. It refuses to let Holocaust grief, patriarchal or homophobic practices, or Zionist loyalty define what 21st century Judaism will be about. Its most significant well-known expositors are Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Judith Plaskow, Marcia Prager, Michael Lerner, Arthur Waskow, Shefa Gold, Tirzah Firestone, Burt Jacobson, David A. Cooper, Yitz & Shonna Husband-Hankins, Shaya Isenberg Bahira Sugarman, Simcha Rafael, Jeff Roth, David Seidenberg, Or Rose, Arthur Green, Shawn Zevit, David Ingber, Phyllis Ocean Berman, Daniel Siegel, and Elliot Ginsburg. Into this boiling over of creativity we can now add Sheila Peltz Weinberg and Rachel Werczberger.
32.4 Fall
Readers Respond
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A NOTE ON LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
We welcome your responses to our articles. Send 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.
Articles
The Scholar as Poet: Remembering Geoffrey Hartman (1929-2016)
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Morris Dickstein reflects on the life of Geoffrey Hartman, whose poems––not as well known as his scholarly work––reveal a more personal side of Hartman “wrestling with Judaism and the Bible in ways that surfaced only much later in his critical prose.”
Characters in a Divine Story: Theological Reflections on The Beautiful Possible by Amy Gottlieb
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In this review of Amy Gottlieb’s The Beautiful Possible, Samuel Lebens reminds us of one of the central tensions of Judaism: we are both the main characters of our own stories, and extras––or completely absent––in the stories of countless others.
#GivingTuesday is right around the corner, and we need your help!
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Do you love what we do at Tikkun and the Network of Spiritual Progressives but don’t have a lot of money? Here’s a great way to support us. #GivingTuesday is Tuesday, November 28th. You can support us by setting up a fundraiser on your own Facebook page and inviting your friends to donate––see below for more instructions! Facebook and the Gates Foundation have agreed to match donations raised on Facebook that day.
Articles
Thanksgiving Mythology and Reality
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The Thanksgiving Myth
by Cliff DuRand
[This talk was given at the Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship of San Miguel of Allende, November 23, 2008]
In many ways the Thanksgiving celebration is a unique festivity. As harvest festivals go it’s not particularly unusual: families gathering for a special meal to enjoy the bounty of nature and the fruit of the growing season’s labor. Most societies in the temperate zones of the earth have such harvest festivals. In the more northerly latitudes of Canada it comes in October as it does also in north China at the time of the harvest moon. At the latitudes of the United States Thanksgiving comes in late November, after the harvests are in.
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Spiritual Activism Training
First Steps:
Download Zoom (If you already have Zoom, you may have to download the latest version. Please be sure you have the latest version downloaded on your device. Click Here to find out what version of Zoom you are running and to update to the latest version.)
Zoom also has 24 hour, 7 day-a-week support (so you can even reach out to them during the call!). You can reach Zoom support at 1-888-799-9666 ext. 2 and then enter the meeting ID #238 901 678 and someone will be able to help you.
Human Empathy as a Primary Source for Peace and Justice
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There is substantial documented evidence to support the idea that we indeed can be better than what our past dogma or trends towards fascism tells us.
Editorials & Actions
Live in NYC or Rockland County? You’re invited!
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You are invited a series of events when Rabbi Lerner speaks in NYC and Rockland County! The President of Brooklyn College has invited him to make a major address Thursday Oct 19 in the series she set up in response to the growth of hate in U.S. politics. That morning he will speak on a panel at Medgar Evers College. And then on Friday night and Saturday he will be the scholar-in-residence at a synagogue in north Nyack in Rockland County where on Friday night he will address “Developing Empathy for BOTH Israel and Palestine” and on Saturday morning he will address the Torah reading (about Noah) and the theme of “Environment and How it is Impacted by Ethics and America’s Spiritual Crisis.”
All of these events are free. Details are below:
1. Brooklyn College. 3:40-5:00 pm on October 19, in the Gold Room of the Student Center. A reception in the Penthouse of the Student Center immediately follows the lecture. Rabbi Lerner’s topic: “Strategies to Combat Racism and Anti-Semitism: The Psychodynamics of American Politics.”
He will discuss the psychopathology in American life that creates the climate in which racism against African Americans and Anti-Semitism grow and strategies to take the country in a different direction. Dinner reception for guests in attendance immediately following in the Student Center Penthouse.
32.3 Summer
Gift/Bible Study/Omitting Beauty and Green
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Gift
Here’s something I
have two of, someone
said, which meant
much, and then
someone without
a word handed
me the one
thing she had—
and I could
barely, in my one
head, hold it.
Bible Study
How does a five-
year-old learn
to play dead? Under what
sun can she
unlearn it? The text above was just an excerpt. The web versions of our print articles are now hosted by Duke University Press, Tikkun’s publisher.
Summer 2017 Table of Contents
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This quarterly issue of the magazine is available both online and in hard copy. The full online articles are only available to subscribers and NSP members — subscribe or join now to read the rest! You can also buy a paper copy of this single print issue. Members and subscribers get online access to the magazine. If you are a member or subscriber who needs guidance on how to register, email chris@tikkun.org or call 510-644-1200 for help — registration is easy and you only have to do it once.
32.3 Summer
The World Needs Repentance
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Repentance, for all faiths or none: a High Holiday exercise
32.3 Summer
Trump Trauma: Where Reality TV Meets ‘Reality by Decree’
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IT’s 2004 AND, despite my best intentions, I’m a pop-culture junkie. While my one-year-old daughter is napping, I watch an episode of a new reality TV show, The Apprentice, hosted by New York real estate mogul, Donald Trump. The show’s premise: Sixteen to eighteen individuals, divided into two teams, test their business acumen by competing in a series of moneymaking challenges. At the end of each episode, Trump calls the losing team into an ersatz boardroom where he delivers his signature tag line, “You’re Fired!” to the individual he determines most guilty of gumming up the works. I remember noting what seemed to me an unprecedented televised celebration of US capitalism with its corresponding culture of authoritarianism and non-empathy.