Since 2006 a team of Buddhists based at the Berkeley Zen Center, have been using Buddhist practice to sustain and inform door-to-door political campaigning.
Articles
The Revolt of the Elites and the Moral Deficit
|
By acknowledging class as a social reality we can become aware of how much we have in common with the restless students in Tunis or the harried shopkeepers in Cairo.
Articles
Your Inheritance
|
Rabbi Artson argues here that “The universe, if left to its own devices, will produce goodness, righteousness, decency, all by itself.” That this is true, despite everything we do to the contrary, is an encouragement to us to fight social evil, to give thanks to all who came before us and to feel at one with all people.
Articles
Tikkun’s Spiritual Response to the Assassination of Osama bin Laden
|
The sort of raucous celebration of Osama bin Laden’s killing that took place outside the White House and in the media erodes our moral and spiritual center. Self-defense is sometimes necessary in this violent world, but let’s remember that a strategy relying on killing the “bad guys” is as futile as trying to end malaria by killing every mosquito on the planet. Drain the swamps of hatred! And violence isn’t the path for that! Now that Osama is dead, lets get our troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan NOW!
Articles
The Great Awe-Wakening
|
The fact that “awe” and its variants are flooding our vocabulary is a welcoming sign that a fuller and deeper sensibility of “awe” is reemerging in our culture.
Articles
Ecstatic Origins of the Western Soul
|
Matthew Fox reviews Peter Kingsley’s “A Story Waiting to Pierce You: Mongolia, Tiber and the Destiny of the Western World.” He writes that in this book Kingsley tells “An earth-shattering, history-breaking story. One that raises whole new possibilities of humans understanding other humans whom we imagine to be so different from ourselves.”
Articles
Hannah Arendt: From Iconoclast to Icon
|
Hannah Arendt, the renowned German-Jewish political philosopher and liberal polemicist, has obtained icon status since her death in 1975. Arendt was a sharp dissenter against the Zionist majority from 1942 on, but to regard her as anti-Zionist is an oversimplification. This famous gadfly sharply criticized Zionism, but from within.
Articles
The Empty Pulpit: The Obama Problem
|
In the absence of a progressive voice resonating from the White House, the radical Right continues to dominate the political noise, forcing its policy narratives into the media and policy decisions.
Articles
A Brainy Seder: Four Questions that Guide Us to One Brain, One People and One God
|
On all other Passover nights, we just read the Haggadah but on this night, we will create a special link between spirit and body, blessing and eating by examining Passover through the scientific understanding of our brain. Interpersonal Neurobiology connects our brains, minds and relationships.
Articles
What Happened to Social Justice in Health Care Reform?
|
The short answer is that social justice was not served by the passage of Obama’s health care law. Despite the early rhetoric from President Obama that health reform must cover everyone, control long-term costs, and improve the quality of health care delivery, none of these goals will be met by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA).
Articles
Free Associations on the Four Sons
|
Dusting off my Haggadah several months early, I was once again intrigued with the nuances of the parable. Far from being a simple description of four types of children, I now saw the parable as offering profound insight into the elements that impact the development of the child, and by extension, the formation and potential for transformation of the world.
Articles
Why Retell the Passover Narrative?
|
Or Rose reviews Arthur Waskow and Phyllis Berman’s new book, “Freedom Journeys: The Tale Of Exodus And Wilderness Across Millennia.”
Articles
When Facts Are Not Enough: Treating Mass Psychosis
|
One of the biggest, long-lasting delusions of progressives is that people are moved mainly by rational arguments. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Articles
Love’s Fever: A Return to the Garden
|
The time-honed debate about whether the Song of Songs is a celebration of sensual love or a depiction of the ever-changing, running-and-returning relationship of the Holy One and the People is put to rest in Rabbi Shefa Gold’s recent translation and commentary of the Song.
Articles
How the Ari Created a Myth and Transformed Judaism
|
How is it that a concept rooted in medieval Jewish mysticism has so endeared itself to contemporary Jews? Howard Schwartz retells the myth of the “Shattering of the Vessels” and explains how it created a foundation for modern-day tikkun olam.