It isn’t enough to assert that dry goes with dry and wet goes with wet. What happens when life is more complex than our sorrow and our fear might suggest? What about when something that once worked becomes broken in the course of its use?
2011
Bringing Awe-Based Consciousness to Psychotherapy
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A progressive movement that is explicitly concerned with fostering an awe-based consciousness will be far more likely to be perceived as understanding one of the most basic needs of contemporary humanity than will a social change movement that appears blind to that concern.
2011
Solidarity with Palestinian Activists
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Having long decried the violent means that some Palestinians have used to call attention to their plight, we in the American Jewish community cannot now turn our backs on a Palestinian movement that uses nonviolence to work for peace. We must do everything in our power to proclaim our solidarity with them.
2011
My Minimalist Jesus
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Here I tell you what little I know. I have studied Jesus and preached Jesus and misunderstood Jesus and re-understood Jesus. I have demythologized Jesus and applied “critical theory” to his words.
2011
The Limitations of Rug-Pulling
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You have to engage with people where they are — not where you want them to end up.
2011
Connect Inner and Outer Transformation!
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From the best of the world’s spiritual and social traditions and from contemporary creativity, we need to develop our tool kits and to organize curricula and training programs to support our ongoing learning and evolution, doing so even in the very midst of action.
2011
Democratizing the Economy from the Bottom Up
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My own work has been a long, long attempt to answer two questions: First, “If you don’t like corporate capitalism and you don’t like state socialism, what do you want?” Second, “And how can we get from here to there?”
2011
Christian Openness to Interreligious Dialogue
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First, they acknowledged that Christianity alone does not have the resources to resolve these problems and recognized that other religions, having deeply reflected on the question of greed over the centuries, have significant wisdom to offer. I want to push a bit further and suggest that religious communities cannot afford to do our work for peace in isolation from each other anymore.
2011
Listen, Laugh, Love
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2. Don’t let fear stop you. Name it, address it — take whatever physical and/or emotional steps are necessary — and keep going.
2011
Keep Your Eye on the Jewish People
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The Jewish people is both world-weary and world-loving, contains within it racists and humanists, Jews by birth and by choice, converted and unconverted, secularists and fundamentalists, first-language Jews and third-language Jews, Jews by marriage, by thought, by inclination, and even Jews by hate who valorize violence against demonic enemies (God help them), those who flee Jewish destiny, and those who embrace it as privilege, and so on and on.
2011
Pure Consciousness and the Work of Tikkun
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The loftiest ideals, the most far-reaching agenda, the best rhetoric — all are for naught if pursued in a spirit of ego enhancement, judgment, and ideological zeal. Exhibit A: Communism. Exhibit B: the Catholic Church throughout its history, as well as current forms of fundamentalist Christianity and Islam.
Articles
Authentic Vulnerability and Deep-Rooted Healing
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The need to evolve human consciousness enough to inspire a fundamental shift in global priorities at this historic juncture is urgent. Thus, it is no longer adequate for spiritual progressives to simply write and talk about elevating consciousness or promoting healing and transformation; we must engage in such healing ourselves.
2011
Justice, Not Charity
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One of the major turning points in my political education was hearing Michael Harrington, the socialist organizer and author of The Other America (1962), the influential book about poverty in America, who spoke at my temple when I was in high school. I agreed with everything he said and thought to myself, “If he’s a radical, so am I.”
2011
Subverting the Mass Media
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I almost always write for the people who don’t agree with me, and I would like to see more writer-activists reach out. For me, that practice began at the old Village Voice when my editor became increasingly conservative. In discussions with him I tried to understand his objections and fears. My story was then shaped to answer his concerns.