Tikkun (https://www.tikkun.org/category/archive/2010/page/5/)
March 28, 1964: Father has been acting quite secretive this week—I think he’s obsessed with hiding the afikomen so I can’t find it this time. Last year he seemed disappointed that I found it so quickly—also, that I wasn’t so thrilled with my present, a simple yo-yo that I felt unsuitable for a sophisticated five-year-old such as myself.
“A Lethal Obsession: Aanti-Semitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad” by Robert S. Wistrich: Review by Milton Viorst
“The Man Who Knew God: Decoding Jeremiah” by Mordecai Schreiber: Review by Barry L. Schwartz
A roundtable discussion among peace activists on the issue of boycott, divestment, and sanctions, May 2010.
The psalms, that body of biblical literature so beautiful and passionate, so full of longing, are often rejected by those committed to progressive politics. Here, though, I would like to encourage those of us interested in changing the world and transforming ourselves to turn to them again and take another look.
We can sense the shared matrix of poetry and music in the rhythmic loam of language from which they both arose. Some of our languages preserve the connection in name: in Hebrew we use shirah to signify both song and poem, as if all song implies poetry and all poetry implies music.
A world of chaos stands before us, all the time that we have not yet reached the “tikkun elyon”—the highest level of healing, repairing, transforming—by uniting all life forces and all their diverse tendencies. As long as each one exalts himself, claiming, I am sovereign, I and no other—there cannot be peace in our midst (Notebook 8:429).
This is not an oil “spill” we are facing, the way water might spill from a dish or oil from a tanker—a finite amount in the first place, and then we clean up. This is more like piercing a hole into the Caverns of Hell, so that they pour forth without limit.
Regardless of the structure, rituals, and principles of our path, and whatever the Divine name to whom we offer our prayers, bisexual and transgender people of faith live consciously and continually in the place where the twain meet.
A different queer politics, focused on racial and economic justice and grassroots activism, has been growing stronger.
Queer politics calls us to go beyond a simple toleration for gay and lesbian communities to address how heteropatriarchy structures white supremacy, capitalism, and settler colonialism.
Proposed legislation in Uganda would make homosexuality a capital offense. The legislation had been reportedly inspired by evangelical Christian leaders from the United States.
As a queer Jew who is deeply critical of the Israeli government and deeply inspired by Jewish ritual, I have a deep desire for both political and spiritual fulfillment.