A poem from our Winter 2011 issue.
2011
Six Rabbis Pray in Jail
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I remember my arrest. It was May of 1972 and Nixon had just mined Haiphong Harbor.
2011
With an Honest Heart
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In other words, tikkun olam is working toward a future in which the same arc that enveloped American Jews envelops all of our neighbors. And for me, that means building interfaith cooperation: bringing together diverse people to both understand one another better and serve the common good.
2011
Tikkun Olam Requires the Imagination of Children
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Hope for healing the world must start with children. This is modeled through Peace Pizzazz, a children’s festival in Kalamazoo, Michigan, sponsored by secular groups (such as the 6th Congressional District Campaign for a U.S. Department of Peace) and religious groups (such as the Skyridge Church of The Brethren) in a collaborative effort to build a whole culture of peace locally and globally.
2011
The Decalogue as an ABC of Human Behavior
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For there is hardly any other people which has something as substantial and striking to offer as Judaism with its Ten Commandments. As the German writer Thomas Mann explained after the terrors of National Socialism, these are the “basic instruction and rock of respectable humanity,” indeed the “ABC of human behavior.”
2011
Dare to Struggle
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Today, conditions are as dire as those we faced in the 1960s, but we are not coming together with sufficient urgency to confront them. Climate change threatens the very existence of a habitable planet, but here in the United States, the business of burning fossil fuels continues as usual.
2011
While Standing on One Foot
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In the kabbalistic theory of tikkun olam, it is our human responsibility to find all those pieces of light that escaped the big creation bang of the original vessel and put the world back together again. When I allow myself to clear my head of my own prejudices and preconceptions, I am always surprised by where I find those pieces of light.
2011
Treat the System, Not the Symptom
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“They stop at treating the symptoms of poverty, such as hunger and poor health, with food programs and clinics, without ever asking the obvious question: Why do a few people enjoy effortless abundance, while billions of others who work far harder experience extreme deprivation?”
2011
How to Face the Future
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War and Peace. Tolstoy got the order right. We must know in deep and dark detail how horrible war is before we will have the courage or wisdom to do much to stop it long enough to resolve and transform a conflict. The Hebrew word for this is “tikkun” — healing and transformation.
2011
The Struggle for Universal Health Care
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This is why I devote my time to working for a health system in the United States that meets the human rights principles of universality, equity, and accountability: a single-payer national health insurance. Anything less will prolong suffering and unnecessary death. Every person in this country must have access to the same high-quality standard of health care.