Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/category/culture/page/61/)
Posts about culture, the arts, the media, book reviews, movies etc.
For many saying “I need you” is scary. If I need you, then I am needy, and so I am dependent, and so I am a failure. But the truth is that I do need you, that I cannot make it [with the same success] without you, that I am [therefore] needy and that I am dependent. It just means that I am human – and that I enjoy a relationship with you that makes many things possible. That is a cause for rejoicing!
The good news is that even as many young Jews reject Judaism, they nevertheless have inherited a memory of the values that Judaism sought to inspire, and so many have joined in a wide variety of prophetic enterprises to reclaim Jewish spirituality and/or rebuild a Jewish social justice consciousness.
Caryl Stern, the President and CEO of the US Fund for UNICEF, has written an interesting and affecting account of her trips to various countries in need of poverty relief and of the real abilities of the citizens in developed countries to make a difference to those in need globally.
While a strict separation of synagogue and state, mosque and state, Hindu and Buddhist temple and state, and separation of atheists and state and virtually all the other approximately 5000 religions and state has been enacted, on the other hand, church – predominantly Protestant denominations, but also Catholic – and state, have connected virtually seamlessly to the affairs and policies of what we call the United States of America, from the first invasion of Europeans in the 15th century on the Christian Julian to the Christian Gregorian Calendars up to 2014 Anno Domini (short for Anno Domini Nostri Iesu Christi – “In the year of our Lord Jesus Christ”).
Tikkun’s print articles are usually only available to subscribers who are logged into our website, but our publisher has agreed to make one article freely accessible for one month! We present to you the article “What Do the Suicides of Fifty-Year-Old Men Reveal?” by Margaret Morganroth Gullette.
Today, Muslim Arab residents comprise 20% of the total Israeli population. According to Kav Mashve’s informational videos, though the Israeli government has instituted an affirmative action policy of employing Arabs in government jobs, has provided financial incentives to prospective employers, and funds and staffs employment guidance centers in Arab towns throughout Israel, the employment rates, however, of Arab Israeli college and university graduates within their respective fields persists one-fifth lower than their Jewish counterparts.
At 6:23pm yesterday, the state of Oklahoma initiated its effort to kill Clayton D. Lockett. Twenty minutes later, after being declared unconscious by a physician, Lockett cried out, “Oh man,” writhing in pain. Addled by this unexpected display of pain, one of the executioners said, “Something’s wrong.” Soon after, the window to the observation room was covered and media were escorted out of the room.
Here we have a note on Fossil Fuels from Bill McKibben, perhaps the most respected activist-environmentalist, and a response from our own Rabbi Michael Lerner.
As spring peers forth from the soil and tree limbs, the annual Easter Egg Roll, sponsored by the President of the United States and the First Lady, thrills elementary and pre-school age children each year. Also, in school classrooms throughout the country, students and their teachers dip hardboiled eggs into brightly colored dyes, and display Easter eggs of pink, yellow, blue, green, red, and lavender. Some students adhere bunny, baby chick, rainbow, or angel decals to their Easter eggs. Some paint flowers or clouds; some sprinkle glitter of silver or gold. An excitement wafts through the classroom as students imagine sharing their treasures with parents or caregivers, as teachers reward the good work of their charges with delicious gleaming chocolate bunnies.
Essentially, any communication, especially about unmet needs, gets filtered through the lens of blame because this is our deep cultural habit: if someone is unhappy, someone is to blame…. Blame, and how we respond to it, is both a symptom of inability to step into power, and an impediment, once present, to movement in the direction of empowered relationships.