Tikkun (https://www.tikkun.org/category/justice-for-all/page/26/)
As queer and trans Jews, as Jews of color, as working-class Jews, we have often had experiences within Jewish communities that amplify that distrust, pushing us out of communities and into isolation. Too many Jewish communities across the country are moving further to the right in their politics, and those of us on the left are feeling the danger of this shift.
The emphasis on the conviction and sentencing of Johannes Mehserle, the BART police officer who shot and killed Oscar Grant, an unarmed black man, in Oakland on New Year’s morning, 2009, is actively preventing us from addressing the real systemic sickness that led to this death and many millions gone.
When I began living as a woman, my children’s world split open. As the truth of my gender collided with the truth of their pain at losing the man they loved, it seemed there was no world we could inhabit together — until love taught us that no matter what gender I expressed, I would always be their father.
Literature and literary criticism, by bringing to light lost, silenced voices, makes their existence known, thus enabling that ethical caring attention be paid to them. In recent years I have focused on retrieving the silenced existence of nonhuman animals as beings worthy of such attention.
In the last years of his life, which I call his mountaintop period, King expanded his prophetic vision, articulating the connections between racism, war, and poverty. At great cost to himself and his organization, he bridged the concerns of the Civil Rights Movement and the peace movement, and excoriated the madness and brutality of the Vietnam War.
History shows that those who gain power tend to recreate structures that work for some and not for others. If, by some miracle, those who resonate with the Tikkun worldview gain sufficient power to have influence on a large scale, I want us to be able to address the pressing issues we are decrying without forcing others, including those who are now in positions of power, to accept our solutions.
The most effective activism is from the soul to the outer world, so each of us must also do the work of creating spiritual coherence within our own souls
We Catholics, on the other hand, get steeped in the Gospels and then eventually get around to studying Paul’s writings. Not that there are contradictions between them, but you’ll have to admit that there’s a different ‘feel’ if you understand Jesus with Pauline theology rather than coming to Paul’s writings steeped in the lifestyle and values prescribed by Jesus.” When I asked the consequences of these differing emphases, he answered, “You Evangelicals turn out television evangelists, whereas we turn out Mother Teresa.”
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?
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.
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.
Almost every government has signed agreements to help develop a peaceful, sustainable, and socially just world. But what does this mean? When most politicians and business leaders talk about sustainable development, they do not mean sustaining life on earth but maintaining profits; when they talk about peace, they do not mean ending violence but winning wars.
Genital mutilations of girls and women are still condoned by custom and religion in parts of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, as are so-called honor killings. The World Health Organization reports that a huge proportion of women worldwide have been physically abused by an intimate partner and that rape is still endemic.
The vast scope of human needs reflects the great challenge of tikkun olam. Simply enacting a law requiring all to pledge “tikkun olam” won’t do it. Notwithstanding the generosity of the American people, there is a scarcity of resources to meet all human needs, there are competing needs to be served, and there are few tools available to assess the relative social impact of different philanthropic and civic investments.