Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/category/culture/page/35/)
Posts about culture, the arts, the media, book reviews, movies etc.
The United States of America was founded on Christian justifications for oppression. But when clergy and lay people pronounce their conservative dogma on sexuality and gender expression, race, women, on other religions and on atheists, they must expect opposition to their ideas and to their dominant group privileges, to their interpretations of scripture, and to their constructions and revisions of history.
Placing wholeheartedness at the center could build much more virtuous cycles between personal change and political action. Placing wholeheartedness at the center of our relationship to work could build much more virtuous cycles between personal change and political action. Author and researcher Elena Blackmore examines the role of empathy in economic transformation.
Now in the wake of a Boston jury’s conviction of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev we have the opportunity to detour out of the perennial cycle of violence and vengeance. Let all these senseless murders serve as a catalyst to bring people even closer together.
We will be lobbying Progressive House of Representatives offices on April 22-24 to encourage people of compassion and sanity to support the Global Marshall Plan Resolution. Even if you cannot be in Washington, D.C. we can still use your help!
Last Friday, on the first night of Passover, I was asked to share a teaching on Moses, who led our people out of slavery in Egypt. A friend suggested I share it with you:
The idea that always arises for me when I think of Moses and many other leaders of spiritual or political revolutions is Amilcar Cabral’s concept of “class suicide.” Cabral was the revolutionary socialist leader of the national liberation movement that freed the Portuguese colony of Guinea-Bissau. “Class suicide” describes the act of dying to the privileged class of one’s birth – for instance, by taking a step with no return – and thus sacrificing one’s own privileged position and power in favor of full identification with the oppressed. In either political or spiritual history, a large proportion of such trailblazers were born into privilege.
Revolution: The NSP Newsletter, April 2015
What is inspiring about the NSP is its call to ground activism in moral and spiritual values. In this time where justice remains elusive, it’s easy to feel despair at the enormous task at hand. In the spirit of Passover, I found myself reflecting upon the story of Moses’s life and the tremendous burning angst within him that he heard as a call to action. This is a call that we all hear and like Moses, do not believe we are up to the task.To read more about my interpretation of this epic story, please click here.Continue below to learn more about how you can join us in our own efforts to transform the world. Cat Zavis, Executive Director of the NSP
Mark Your Calendars! We are excited to share with you that from May 19th – 21st we are hosting (with the Shift Network) a series of calls with activists, leaders, theologians, historians, authors and others who are working to create a world based on a New Bottom Line of love and justice in fields such as: Conscious Politics, Global Capitalism, Structural Injustice, the Environment, and Youth Activism.
Social movement history has proven that people with different self interests, and indeed with different tactics, can work towards the same goal. But J Street’s desire until now to remain inside the mainstream pro-Israel camp has caused them to actively work against Palestinians and their allies who are using nonviolent tactics
On Yom HaShoah, let’s honor all who have died by not perpetuating fear and hatred, by overcoming mutual suspicions and reaching out to “the Other,” by using civic engagement and social action to resist the forces of hatred but most of all let the facts set us free.
At Mt. Sinai again Moses is given a message — this is not a message for Moses alone, this is a message for all peoples: how to live an ethical, spiritually rich, just, and environmentally sustainable life.
Whatever your tradition may be, the Passover story reverberates with relevance in our modern world. It is a story of resistance, struggle, self-doubt, and crises of faith, the attempt to destroy a people perceived as the Enemy. Just as we remove drops of wine from our cups to commemorate the Egyptian firstborn sons who were slain, so should we hold dear the thousands of Palestinian children killed in the name of Israeli “security.”