Tikkun (https://www.tikkun.org/category/archive/page/53/)
In truth, we all have a deep longing for holiness, even those whose actions seem to belie this need — those for whom words like community and justice have become distorted and degraded. It is only bitter disappointment in the absence of the holy that makes human longing turn to movements like the Tea Party, a movement clearly fueled by anger and divisiveness.
Reliance on science and technology to solve human dilemmas does not lead to peace. And the threats of nuclear annihilation and war certainly give anyone adequate reasons for fear. The modern world does little to remind us of our humanity.
9. Revisioning Conflict: Explore ways of resolving religious conflict that are nonviolent and rooted in justice, equity, respect, understanding, compassion and forgiveness, while reframing conflict as an opportunity for creative reconciliation, growth, and connection.
10. Cross-Fertilization: Study how the world’s religions have cross-fertilized one another directly and indirectly, and appreciate how we have benefited from each other’s spiritual gifts.
How much are we motivated by a natural partiality for our own suffering? And how much by willful blindness and moral laziness? And finally, where do we draw the hard lines of rejecting injustice, no matter how traumatic the source?
Students in my classes, ever more discouraged during the 1990s and then again after 9/11, took heart at the antiwar sentiment in 2003 (Tony Kushner, Woody Harrelson, and Howard Zinn were among our speakers in that extended moment prior to Shock, Awe and calculated devastation) and then lost it again, regained it during the Immigrant Rights march of 2006 and once more at the Obama presidential campaign, and have been struggling to regain their ground ever since. Jewish students were naturally active in all these movements, while Jewish organizations as such were most frequently on the wrong sides of the issues.
Faith in militarism is on the rise in the Jewish community, and yet, violence, as Hannah Arendt reminded her generation, always leads to more violence.
If progressives can prevail upon Democrats to use more explicit references to We and the common good (as Michael Lerner and Tikkun frequently do), media portrayals of issues could shift, support for public interest policies could increase, and special-interest-dominated legislation (that perpetuates war, inequality, and environmental destruction) might decline.
Two cents from a hippie-generation activist to those dedicated to healing the world:
You should not assume that others know what you know, have read what you’ve read, have seen what you’ve seen, or have heard what you’ve heard.
Many opponents of “Obamacare” (the recent health insurance policy reform legislation) value providing health care to all who need it and want a future in which such care is unproblematic. But they have been misled into believing that their freedom and empowerment resides in free markets and that the government is Big Brother and something to fear.
Lifting up the thriving of all and offering the hopeless new hope is both a political agenda and a spiritual agenda. For me, in fact, the two types of agendas cannot be separated; they affirm both the sacred spark within each of us and the need to cultivate that spark in the context of a world that sometimes seems determined to put it out.
As I wrote here long ago in a piece called “What Moves in a Movement” — and as we’ve in different ways emphasized throughout the twenty-five years of existence that we are commemorating in this issue — a social movement can only emerge and gather steam as a social force if it acquires the density of authentic mutual recognition, if through our participation in it we gain a new sense of our social worth, power, and authority in our very collective being.
There is something deeply embedded in our epigenetic coding that inherently draws us to be warriors for justice and hope and fierce opponents of injustice. This is so much so, that many Jews on the left ignore the genocidal intentions of those who would destroy us and focus solely on the condemnation of Israel and her supporters.
Since 1972, the Right has set out to build a well-financed, interlocking, loosely coordinated set of institutions that promote their message, train their cadres, and support their public representatives with money and ideas. Similarly, the Left needs interpretive institutions that can creatively link people’s real interests — their needs for economic security, meaning, recognition, agency, and connectedness — with a broader political program.
What is your passion? Find it — or let it find you — and, from that ecstasy, act to make the world better, more just, more joyous. It is only from such ecstasy, from such an energy-producing position outside of (ex) the fixed place (stasis) of things, that tikkun comes about.