Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2012/page/17/)
Introducing spiritual concepts into policy discussions is not easy, but fortunately science is on our side. The latest developments in physics, biology, neuroscience, and psychology all confirm the fundamental connection of all humans and the centrality of consciousness to existence. Now we can talk hard science as well as soft-hearted spirituality in advocating for change.
Shachtman had spawned a new generation of acolytes who eventually followed to an extreme, the logic of his strategic thinking and overly rigid anti-Communism into the Reagan administration.
Indeed, one key piece of harassment is missing in this report: the harassment conducted by those who do not want to hear any criticism of Israel voiced at all on UC campuses.
It saddens us at Tikkun to see how twisted that Church leadership has become, just as we have been saddened by how twisted the Jewish leadership has become to give blind support to the oppressive policies of Israel toward Palestinians, and reminds us to once again invite all Christians who do feel connected to the social justice, peace and love oriented Jesus to join our INTERFAITH Network of Spiritual Progressives at www.spiritualprogressives.org so that we can work together to amplify these voices and provide comfort and support to those who are being “dissed” in their own religious communities for taking seriously the highest teachings of their God.
In the coming two months we welcome submissions (to me at RabbiLerner.tikkun@gmail.com) about what and who spiritual progressives should be backing in the coming elections. Below we print the article sent to us by Uri Avnery on Paul Ryan and Ayn Rand. Like every such article, we do not claim this to be an official Tikkun perspective, but rather an interesting take, in this case from the leader of the most intellectually coherent Israeli peace movement–Gush Shalom.
Once we recognize a core value, we draw an arc that extends from that moment to the end of our life, hoping and longing to have the integrity to live in line with that value.
“Judges and magistrates shall you set before you at all your gates…”
While contemporary Jewry may seem like a top heavy organization with a bloated self appointed leadership proclaiming ever more severe rulings and extremist dogmas generally foreign to traditional texts and practices, and its concern with “Stadium Judaism”, Jewish mystical thought, and the Hassidic movement in particular, became popular because of their emphasis upon the spiritual uniqueness of each individual, giving universal meaning to every tear, every moment of pain of each individual. This way this week’s text, which seemingly deals with just that kind of bureaucratic process, is read by the mystics, is a perfect example of what the movement was once about. Whereas in the classical medieval commentators these sections provided an opportunity to discuss political and social issues, from the Shenei Luchot Habrit (the Shel”a) onwards there is a tendency to internalize these commandments, reading them as referring to psychological states. Less concerned with the political workings of a society, the Hasidic masters turned these ordinances inward, into statements of inner governance. The Shel”a’s reading of the verse “judges and magistrates you shall set up at your gates” hinges upon the word ‘your’, thus understanding the verse as commanding a personal, internal critique at the portals of entry of sensory information to consciousness, that is at the senses.
“Somewhere Between” is an uplifting documentary film that relates the lives in America of four teenagers who are among the 80,000 girls brought here from China since 1989, due to its “one-child family” policy.
In very many aspects of our common life, we Americans cannot find the will for concerted moral action. With respect to some of the crises America faces, our sermons this summer and fall aim to consider core values which opposing wings embrace, and to ask how the Christian tradition can encourage and inform and strengthen us to hold a light of God before us and before those we must oppose, as we all fly into the obscurity of the future. Today, our subject is war and violence. God knows, it is the subject of our biblical texts – and of hundreds of others besides. We might say that while the jewels of the Bible’s teachings are about loving God and loving neighbor, the biblical setting for those jewels is a ring of violence and warfare.
In this chilling article from Haaretz, Nir Hasson details a brutal attack by a gang of Jewish Israeli youth on three young Palestinians right near the center of Zion Square in Jerusalem. Several suspects have been arrested but the underlying racism in Israeli society that made this possible has not yet been addressed.