VIDEO: Naomi Newman

Community-building and tikkun-ing the world are two themes A Traveling Jewish Theatre has explored during its thirty-four years. After receiving the Tikkun Award, theater co-founder Naomi Newman told two stories.

Readers Respond: Letters from Winter 2011

Letters to the editor on JFK’s Vietnam Withdrawal, How to Achieve Tikkun Olam, Why Gays Deserve Equal Rights, JFK Assassination, Assassination and Israel, JFK’s Courage, Obama’s Frustration and Courage, Pursuing Change, New Zionism and Peace, A Spiritual Progressive Party, Violence and Peace, Science and Spirit, Party Loyalty and Change, Iranophobia, Negativity Regarding Israel, Disillusionment with the Democrats, and more!

Navigating This New Site

March 4, 2011

To find your way around our new website…

…just follow every link that looks interesting! For our print readers who are really unfamiliar with the web see the New to the Web heading below. The New Online Tikkun Magazine
Our goal is that every week the slideshow and the four articles with small images underneath will change. Those four articles with images will be exclusive to Tikkun online, though they may include a book excerpt like the extraordinary one by long-time Tikkun author Roger Gottlieb in our first week. The slideshow will feature a wider range of exciting content including:

Tikkun articles and editorials
Action alerts, conferences, events
Posts on our blog, Tikkun Daily
Exhibits on our Art Gallery

Some new articles may also appear at the top of the Featured Articles section, along with articles from previous weeks’ top four.

Tikkun Turns 25: It’s Not Too Late to Come or Donate in Honor of the Magazine and Our Honorees

On March 14 we celebrate at the Pauley Ballroom of the Student Union Building at the University of California, Berkeley from 6:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. with music, poetry, and speeches. Don’t miss the evening’s talks from our founders Rabbi Michael Lerner and Nan Gefen, as well as from associate editor Peter Gabel. We will also bestow the prestigious Tikkun Award personally to:
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Judge Richard J. Goldstone (author of UN human rights reports on Bosnia, Rwanda, and Gaza)
Congressman Raul Grijalva (a leader of the struggle for immigrant rights in the U.S. House of Representatives)
Naomi Newman (a cofounder of A Traveling Jewish Theatre)
Rabbi Marcia Prager (director of the Jewish Renewal rabbinic training program and author of A Path of Blessing)
C.K. Williams (winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry), and
Sheikh Hamza Yusuf (Muslim theologian and a founder of Zaytuna College). Register online or by calling 510-644-1200 (not on the weekend) between 9:30 a.m-5 p.m. Pacific Time. Our first issue was released on May Day in 1986 and we’ve never missed a deadline from then till now.

Our Comments Policy

Policy
Tikkun invites you to comment. Hoping for lively dialogue among people of differing political or ideological points of view, we allow visitors to directly post their comments. Wishing for respectful dialogue that invites participation in a collaborative, empathic community, we will delete any comments that are abusive, off-topic, or include personal attacks. Any commenter who repeatedly comments in a manner that we consider to amount to heckling, without evident attempt at constructive discussion or at empathic understanding of the other, may be blocked from commenting. Our commenting system includes automated spam and reviews by our editorial staff and web team, but our lack of staff often means we are slow to notice comments that violate this policy, and we invite your feedback: if you feel you or your comment have been unfairly blocked, or if you feel a comment is inappropriate and ought to be removed, please contact us.

Ask The Rabbi

Have you got a question for Rabbi Michael Lerner? Click here and fill in his Ask the Rabbi form. Question:
Animal sacrifices? Why? It’s cruel and inhumane.

What is Jewish Renewal?

Jewish Renewal is a new movement within Judaism. It is a kind of neo-Hasidism, in that it seeks the spiritual renewal of Judaism, but “neo” because it insists on full equality for women and a creative return to the process of transforming Hallakhah (Jewish law) so that it continues to be a living path to connection to God. The philosophy of Jewish Renewal is articulated best in the theological writings of Abraham Joshua Heschel (see particularly The Prophets and God In Search of Man and Man Is Not Alone) and Zalman Schachter Shalomi (Paradigm Shift), Arthur Waskow (Down To Earth Judaism, GodWrestling) and Michael Lerner (Jewish Renewal: A Path to Healing and Transformation). Judaism is a distinctive blending of spirituality and a liberatory political vision. But when Judaism abandoned its liberatory message, the Judaism that survived was unable to command the respect and adherence of many Jews.

Ten Commitments

Many of us find the notion of “commandments” oppressive and hierarchical. Yet we know that a community cannot be built on the principle of only doing what feels right at the moment — it requires a sense of responsibility to each other. So, we encourage our community to take on the following ten commitments, based roughly on a rereading of the Torah’s ten commandments (and incorporating the framework and many specific ideas articulated by Rami Shapiro in his book Minyan). Start each day with ten minutes of meditation on these ten principles, followed by the Shema. It will bring a new level of joy in your life.