Tikkun Magazine Archive 1994 - 2018 (https://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/2010/05/)
We regret and deplore the killings which took place as Israeli troops, in defiance of international law, boarded and assaulted, wounded many and killed some of the participants in a flotilla seeking to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza (itself a morally outrageous policy) to bring humanitarian aid.
Progressives have been blessed in the past two years with three significant opportunities to change the fundamentals of American society. We’ve already blown the first and are missing the second and third.
Every night since the attack on my home by right-wing Zionists, I’ve been saying a prayer of forgiveness for them. While the political meaning of that act, and of the demeaning of critics of Israel, will be explored more fully in the July/August issue of Tikkun, on the spiritual level it is very important to not let negativity, even terrorism or violence, get the upper hand by bringing us down to the same level of anger or hatred that motivates those who act violently or those who demean and attempt to delegitimate the critics of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. If we are to build a world of love, we have to constantly work against the impulse to respond to anger and hatred with our own angry or hateful response. So, every night, I work on forgiving those who have assaulted my home, those who publicly demean me or Tikkun or the NSP, and those who spread hatred against the many people in our world who legitimately critique the policies of the State of Israel toward Palestinians. It was in this context that I thought I’d post some notes taken by therapist Linda Graham at a recent weekend retreat on forgiveness conducted by Jack Kornfield and Fred Luskin.
Can we scare criminals into being good? A look into a new attempt at crime prevention.
Traditional Buddhism is a spiritual path for individuals, not a platform for social change — yet is it always clear where one ends and the other begins?
A death-camp dog knew better than many philosophers. It took Jews like Rosenzweig and Levinas to point out the flaw and the remedy.
Critical discussions of Israeli policy are too often tarred as “anti-Semitism” and shut down. In reality, holding Israel to an ethical standard is necessary to stem a rising tide of real anti-Semitism.
Has the Obama presidency failed? No, resistance to social and political change
is not a sign of failure—it’s inevitable, and can be overcome.
Did we fail on health care? The debate is vigorous. Richard Kirsch and Lauren Reichelt respond.
It’s not self-sacrifice but liberation that the Tao and all deep spiritual wisdom offer us.
Facing climate change, we must free ourselves or collapse.