Last month, the Democratic Party aligned with the Republican Party to pass a dangerous piece of legislation that actually undermines the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. This legislation calls to dramatically expand U.S. military aid to Israel while keeping Israel dependent upon the United States. United States military aid to Israel already exceeds the monetary value of all foreign aid programs to sub-Saharan Africa combined, but Congress has voted to revamp it nonetheless.
We are looking for a full-time personal assistant to Rabbi Michael Lerner, involved in helping to build the community of Beyt Tikkun Synagogue-Without-Walls in Berkeley, who would also be the organizer/outreach person for the Network of Spiritual Progressives (NSP) and do editorial work at Tikkun magazine and possibly become Assistant Editor. (The Network of Spiritual Progressives is the activist arm of Tikkun.) This one-year activist opportunity involves full immersion in the activities of our small yet high-powered non-profit. It includes regular night and weekend work, in addition to standard 9-6pm working hours with an hour for lunch. Our Assistant to the Editor works from our office in lovely downtown Berkeley, across the Bay from San Francisco, and enjoys all the benefits of living in beautiful northern California (3-4 hours ride to Yosemite or to Big Sur). Beyt Tikkun is Rabbi Lerner’s shteebel/shul– a small group of people who meet either Friday night or Saturday morning each Shabbat for Jewish prayer and Torah study.
Webs of blinding irony are being spun around Private First Class Manning, obscuring the military’s methodical denial of Manning’s constitutionally guaranteed right to a fair trial.
While the Israeli-Palestinian conflict seems in abeyance and “nothing happens,” it is really going on with full force in the only battlefield that matters: the settlement enterprise.
An elephant will be sitting Wednesday in the courtroom of Supreme Court
justices Asher Grunis, Salim Joubran and Noam Sohlberg. The elephant
will occupy the places of the five plaintiffs, who will be absent: five
women from the Gaza Strip who were accepted into Bir Zeit University in
the West Bank. Four want to go on to a master’s degree in gender studies. Of these, three are in their 40s and one is in her 30s. The fifth is a
young woman who graduated from high school with honors and has enrolled
in law school.
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?
Nature and Nonviolence
by Thich Nhat Hanh
[Listen to Audio!]
You don’t discriminate between the seed and the plant. You see that they ‘inter-are’ with each other, that they are the same thing. Looking deeply at the young cornstalk, you can see the seed of corn, still alive, but with a new appearance. The plant is the continuation of the seed. The practice of meditation helps us to see things other people can’t see.
Excerpts from The Thunder: Perfect Mind
(Translated by Rev. Hal Taussig and others from a text
in Coptic from the Nag Hammadi library,
1st 2 centuries of the Common Era.)
I [in Coptic, Anokh] am the first and the last
I am she who is honored and she who is mocked
I am the whore and the holy woman
I am the wife and the virgin
I am the mother and the daughter
I am the limbs of my mother
I am the sterile woman and she has many children
I am she whose wedding is extravagant and I didn’t have a husband
I am the midwife and she who hasn’t given birth
I am the comfort of labor pains
I am the bride and the bridegroom
And it is my husband who gave birth to me
I am my father’s mother,
My husband’s sister, and he is my child
I am the slave-woman of him who served me
I am she, the lord of my child
But it is he who gave birth to me at the wrong time
And he is my child born at the right time
And my power is from within him
I am the staff of his youthful power
And he is the baton of my old womanhood
Whatever he wants happens to me
I am the silence never found
And the idea infinitely recalled
I am the voice with countless sounds
And the thousand guises of the word
I am the speaking of my name
You who loathe me, why do you love me and loathe the ones who love me? You who deny me, confess me
You who confess me, deny me
You who speak the truth about me, lie about me
You who lie about me, speak the truth about me
You who know me, ignore me
You who ignore me, know me
I am both awareness and obliviousness
I am humiliation and pride
I am without shame
I am ashamed
I am security and I am fear
I am war and peace
…
Why do you despise my fear and curse my pride? I am she who exists in all fears and in trembling boldness
I am she who is timid
And I am safe in a comfortable place
I am witless, and I am wise
Why did you hate me with your schemes? I shall shut my mouth among those whose mouths are shut and then I will show up and speak
Why then did you hate me, you Greeks? Because I am a barbarian among barbarians?
Morris Berman has always been an acute reader of American culture and society, so his warnings here need to be taken quite seriously.–Rabbi Michael Lerner
Slouching Towards Nuremberg
Strange things are happening in the United States these days, and every day seems to bring additional scary news. The similarity to the erosion of civil liberties in Germany during the 1930s is a bit too close for comfort. Many will regard this statement as hyperbole, and, to some extent, it is. But let’s take a close look at what is going on before we dismiss the comparison out of hand.
In terms of the historical record for Germany, legal discrimination against Jews certainly existed before the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, and grew steadily over time.