A poem from our September/October 2010 issue.
Other Voices
An Interdependence Day Celebration for July 4
|
Faced with July 4th celebrations that are focused on militarism, ultra-nationalism, and “bombs bursting in air,” many American families who do not share those values turn July 4th into another summer holiday focused on picnics, sports, and fireworks, while doing their best to avoid the dominant rhetoric and bombast.
2010
Speaking Our Pain: Anguish, Wonder, and Comfort in the Psalms
|
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.
Core Vision
Forgiveness
|
Every night since the attack on my home by right-wing Zionists, I’ve been saying a prayer of forgiveness for them. While the political meaning of that act, and of the demeaning of critics of Israel, will be explored more fully in the July/August issue of Tikkun, on the spiritual level it is very important to not let negativity, even terrorism or violence, get the upper hand by bringing us down to the same level of anger or hatred that motivates those who act violently or those who demean and attempt to delegitimate the critics of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. If we are to build a world of love, we have to constantly work against the impulse to respond to anger and hatred with our own angry or hateful response. So, every night, I work on forgiving those who have assaulted my home, those who publicly demean me or Tikkun or the NSP, and those who spread hatred against the many people in our world who legitimately critique the policies of the State of Israel toward Palestinians. It was in this context that I thought I’d post some notes taken by therapist Linda Graham at a recent weekend retreat on forgiveness conducted by Jack Kornfield and Fred Luskin.
2009
Conversation on Vegetarianism
|
An exchange between Tikkun reader Ruth Eisenbud and Michael Lerner, in response to Daniel Brook’s article “The Planet-Saving Mitzvah: Why Jews Should Consider Vegetarianism” in the July/August 2009 issue of Tikkun. magazine.
2009
The Planet-Saving Mitzvah: Why Jews Should Consider Vegetarianism
|
God’s original plan for how to be kosher.
2006
Environmentalism as Spirituality
|
Excerpt from A Greener Faith: Religious Environmentalism and Our Planet’s Future by Roger S. Gottlieb. (June 2006, Oxford University Press)
2003
Prayer as a Rebellion: What Happens When You Ask God for Help?
|
During the past few years I have been giving workshops on the psychology of prayer at temples, synagogues, and Jewish book fairs nationwide. At each event, I invariably get asked the same probing questions: “Is it OK to ask God for assistance?”, “Do Jews still talk to God about their dreams and desires?”, “Do these personal prayers and meditations make a difference?”
1998
A Spiritual Renewal of Education
|
Education is everywhere in crisis. This is true not just in the failed schools of our inner cities but also in our successful” schools where we are spending huge sums to turn out graduates who lack a moral conscience to match the power of their skills to destroy, to make greedy profits, and to despoil the earth for future generations.
1998
Starting on My Spiritual Path
|
Naomi Wolf describes her struggle to “come out” as a spiritual person in a progressive, post-Marxist milieu which was “profoundly atheistic and hostile to religious and spiritual traditions.”