Tikkun (https://www.tikkun.org/category/justice-for-all/activism/page/14/)
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.”
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.
I’ve had the privilege of working with a kaleidoscope of issues from local to global: disarmament, economic justice, labor justice, decolonization, indigenous sovereignty, homelessness, urban ministry, community organizing, gang diversion, immigrant rights, hospice, food justice, water rights, environmental protection, fair housing, literacy, solidarity, inclusion — not to mention all the relational work that glues together (or doesn’t) such work.
When I know that this is what is happening right now and the next moment will be different, as long as I do not resist it, a space opens. This is the space of freedom which activates my intelligence, my free will.
Awe awakens us to the world. To stay alive as activists, we need to guard against constricting our lives in the face of immense political challenges and acting out of mere ideological habit.
Our hypermodern selves are pretty much at a kindergarten level now regarding the understanding of how dynamically interrelated the world is (not to be confused with the sort of connectedness the Internet affords, useful though that may be).
What concerns me is the type of oblivious and self-involved behavior that becomes so pervasive that it saps energy and even breaks the spirits of those who encounter it. I think that there is a contradiction in claiming to work for a better world in the future while at the very same time causing people a lot of pain because of how one acts in the here and now.
When Tikkun was founded, its name made clear its intent to repair and establish a means by which the values of tikkun olam would have their moral and ethical effect on not only the Jewish community but also the larger American and global ones.
It is important to listen. My most frequent mistake is trying to impose my point of view or other personal expectation on a multifaceted world. When we set out to improve life for others without a fundamental understanding of their point of view and quality of experience, we do more harm than good.
Maimonides said the highest form of tzedakah (charity) is anonymous giving. I think the best test of a pure commitment to social justice is one’s willingness to do the work with zero expectation of honor or recognition.
Let’s get the apology over with first. Like everyone in my generation (those who lived through the upheavals of the sixties), I feel dreadful about the world we’re leaving you. I myself don’t plan on leaving it soon, but we had the chance to leave you a much better springboard, and we failed.
I’m struggling with this right now, and I’ve struggled with it for thirty years … self-care and soul care and close-circle-of-friends care are not distractions from our work for tikkun olam or the kingdom of God, but rather are integral to it.
Those of us who founded and shaped Tikkun for the past twenty-five years have been solidly committed to supporting the manifestation of the Spirit of God in this world. In our view that means advancing the possibilities of a world based on love; kindness; generosity; individual and collective freedom; mutual recognition; thanksgiving; pleasure; joy; the evolution of scientific knowledge, spiritual wisdom, understanding of self and others, and deep levels of individual and global consciousness; the triumph of social justice; peace; equality; material well-being; environmental sanity; mutual forgiveness and caring for each other; and awe, wonder, and radical amazement at the grandeur and mystery of the universe. Our goal of tikkun-ing the world (healing, evolving and transforming it), has a long tradition in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and in other spiritual and religious communities as well. We are merely one contemporary embodiment of that tradition. The Promise, Successes, and Problems of the NSP
Knowing that people often find that their highest progressive ideals cannot be expressed freely in their various religious communities, or at least not acted upon in those institutions, we decided seven years ago to create the Network of Spiritual Progressives (NSP) to be the educational and activist arm of Tikkun.
Don’t be afraid of solitude and silence, and question those who are!
I remember my arrest. It was May of 1972 and Nixon had just mined Haiphong Harbor.