Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/category/culture/page/72/)
Posts about culture, the arts, the media, book reviews, movies etc.
Work dominates our lives and is, unfortunately, a place where the culture’s predominant values – compete and win, dominate and control – are typically rehearsed with unrestrained virulence. This blog discusses how salaried workers – even without a renewed workers rights movement – can apply the lessons of Radical Decency to infuse their relationships with greater ease, trust, and respect.
Is “social practice” yet another insurgent, critical movement being watered-down into something palatable to the establishment art world – something that may reify existing power relations rather than undermining them?
Even after waking up to the role that Israel was playing in the region, enough to where I wanted to leave because I didn’t want to have certain things done in my name, I still believed what I had been told about the United States of America. It took several more years for me to repeat the feat of questioning to the point of losing that faith. It seems to me that three things combine to make it so unlikely for people to become aware of and take personal responsibility for what is done in their name in this country…
The challenges faced by our children as they struggle to assimilate in American culture imply a very real danger of becoming conflicted and confused as they grow older. But we can all rally behind a holiday like Thanksgiving. After all, it’s a perfect blend of national, cultural and religious values: we come together as a nation, but bring our own unique foods and practices to the celebration, and we stand united with our common religious teachings of gratitude and service.
I often wonder: as North Americans, do we collectively and conveniently choose to forget the genocide of the native peoples living in North America, the use of bio-warfare? The whole idea of a “first Thanksgiving” is murky at best and as is with so much of early colonial American history, most of what we “remember” is filtered through centuries of creative reconstruction.
America is no longer blue or red in its desire to tackle human-created global warming—it’s green. Our present way of life, economy, and civilization and the future of our children and grandchildren rest with us this very day. Will we take back our democracy? Will we seize our rights and power as citizens for our economy, way of life, very lives, and future generations?
As Hanukkah approaches this week, earlier and more turkey-filled than ever, it’s important to ask that age-old question: What’s really Jewish? Rabbis and poets and the atheist uncles at my family’s Seder table have debated the question for generations. Forget the scholars and drunks, I say. The best answer I’ve ever heard came from a comedian. His name was Lenny Bruce.
All the pain and anxiety about money arises in forgetting that our only mission is to love. Detoured from our inner aim, we focus on distrust and power and fear.
It took me some effort when I decided, some years ago, to deliberately free my language from the word “ego.” I did not want to use a concept so loaded with negative charge. I want my language to reflect my commitment to a different view of human nature instead of supporting the view that inside each of us there is a core part that must be transcended or suppressed in order to become a mature, functional member of human society.
If you happen to be in the San Francisco Bay Area on the third night of Chanukah, Friday November 29th, come celebrate with Rabbi Michael Lerner and Beyt Tikkun Synagogue-without-walls, the Tikkun community and the Network of Spiritual Progressives.