Reflections on Fasting (and not Fasting) of Tisha b’Av (2018)
Shaul Magid
I am lucky. I fast pretty easily.
Editorials & Actions
Christian Liberation Theologian Boff on the Karmic Weight of Brazilian History
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Editor’s Note: Christian Liberation Theologian Leonardo Boff presents a framework for understanding the current moment in the suffering and struggle in Brazil by stepping back from the details and contextualizing it in the cosmic evolution of a spiritual world seeking to manifest itself in and through a world of love. –Rabbi Michael Lerner
The karmic weight of Brazilian history
Leonardo Boff
Eco-Theologian-Philosopher
Earthcharter Commission
The grave magnitude of the Brazilian crisis is such that we lack means of explaining it. Trying to go beyond the classic approaches of critical sociology or history, I have invoked the explanatory capacity of the psychoanalytical categories of “light” and “shadow;” generalized as personal or collective anthropological constants. I tried out a possible understanding that comes to us from the theory of chaos, an important chapter of the new cosmology, because from this chaos, in a situation of the highest complexity and relationship interaction, life as we know it arose, including our life. This has proven to be capable of identifying that Powerful and Loving Energy that sustains everything, the Generating Principle of all Beings, and of opening to Him with veneration and respect.
Editorials & Actions
The Holocaust Did Not Begin with Killing; it Began with Words
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Dr. Warren J. Blumenfeld recognizes the differences between Nazi Germany and Trump’s America, but still asks “why can we not understand as Jews the similarities in the themes of oppression, of scapegoating, of demonizing, of dehumanizing, of marginalizing people who are only asking for a better life?”
Editorials & Actions
Poverty Consciousness: Confronting Our Fear of Falling
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“Our society underestimates the turmoil and cognitive dissonance educators experience having to manage complex layers of adversity.” Dr. Raquel Ríos introduces us to a framework to help combat this dissonance.
Articles
Celebrating July 4th in the Trump Years
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Celebrating July 4th in the Trump Years: Make it Inter-Dependence Day to Challenge the Ideology of Right Wing Ultra-Nationalism
by Rabbi Michael Lerner editor Tikkun magazine
A July 4th “ Seder”
In past years, 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 turned July 4th into another summer holiday focused on picnics, sports and fireworks while doing their best to avoid the dominant rhetoric and bombast. For the millions of us who have been outraged at the pulliing of children from the arms of their parents, and sent to places where it will be very hard to determine who their parents are, there will be an even stronger tendency to either forget about celebrating this holiday or to use it just to mourn the horrific developments that unfold week after week in this sectond year of the Trumpites. But I think we would be making a mistake to not use this moment to not only mourn, but also organize in a new way. During the Trump years I believe all of us have a unique opportunity as well as a moral obligation to use this holiday to connect with our fellow Americans and challenge the “America First” ultra-nationalist worldview that Trump and Right-wing activists are trying to popularize. They are shifting the mainstream dialogue from its previous center-right blandly pro-capitalist worldview to an extremist right-wing nationalism, already mobilized against immigrants, those seeking humanitarian refugee status, and environmental protections.
US_Politics
Zero Tolerance: An Open Letter from Jewish Writers about U.S. Immigration Policy
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Several days ago, Donald Trump was forced by mounting protests to end his policy of separating children from parents accused of illegally crossing the American border. Once separated from their mothers and fathers, these boys and girls were transported to mass detention centers or put in foster care. More than 100 of the 2,300 children were younger than four years of age. To those of us who doubted that any protest would have an effect on Trump, this change in his strategy comes as excellent news – indeed, it is proof that if enough of us join together in protest, we can force him to back down. And yet, at the same time that the U.S. President signed his Executive Order and eliminated the most inhumane part of his anti-immigration program, he boasted that he would continue his so-called “zero-tolerance” policy with regard to immigration. Furthermore, his new instructions failed to address the plight of the children who were previously taken from their parents and housed in shelters.
Editorials & Actions
Ariel Dorfman: I was not in a cage, but was scarred for life
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Many questions swirl around Donald Trump’s executive order that supposedly reverses his policy of breaking up families at the border, but one thing is certain amid so much confusion, hypocrisy and ineptitude: permanent damage has already been done, and more is to come. Damage to the children and their parents, and damage to the United States and what it stands for.
Ariel Dorfman
I think of them in the dark, when their keepers have turned off the lights, when the children sob themselves to sleep. I think of when they awake and neither mamá or papá are there, just other kids and unknown adults hovering nearby, strangers charged with caring for their basic needs. I think of the toddlers, above all, eating their American breakfast, old enough to be asking a question in Spanish — dónde está mi mami?
Editorials & Actions
YES, I am a Socialist…A note from candidate for Dem. nomination for U.S. Senate from Maryland
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[Editor’s Note: Tikkun does not endorse any candidates for office. We are publishing this only to let you know that in Trump’s America, a socialist can run for office, and even be heard by some people. That broadens the public dialogue, whether or not you agree with him.–rabbilerner.tikkun@gmail.com ]
Yes, I Am A Socialist
and, you might be one too, listen to your body
by Jerome Segal
Did you ever stare at a picture of a naked child? Full frontal? And did it stick in your mind?
Editorials & Actions
The Audacious and Inspirational Gift of Pride: How 50 Years of Hopeful Resistance Can Inspire Us Today
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by . Rabbi Mike Moskowitz and Rev. Dr. Amy Butler
A prominent progressive faith leader posted a question on Facebook this week asking other faith leaders and scholars “How are you doing with everything that is going on politically?” This has been a week in which all of us are feeling the deep divisions in our country.
Those of us to inhabit spaces of privilege may feel a growing hopelessness, like a chasm opening up in front of us these days; it’s like the advent of a deep nighttime that perhaps we have not seen in our lifetimes. We are waking up to the realities of injustice and oppression that have defined the daily living experience of too many of our neighbors. For those of us who tend faith communities and teach people of faith how to birth into the world more kindness, justice, and peace, well…times are hard.
Folks answered the question with comments like:
“I’m angry, really angry, and when not angry, deeply depressed.”
“I kind of lost my shit in preaching class today. I’m the professor.”
“I’m tired and worried.”
“Pretty scatterbrained and struggling to focus. My sleeping is erratic.”
“Exhausted.”
“I felt physically ill driving to the office this morning, and realized it was a physical reaction to the news I was listening to.”
“Helpless to change the situation.”
Any one of us paying even the slightest attention to the atrocious policies being implemented by the American government, both within, along, and outside our borders, can’t be unfamiliar with feelings like these. Sometimes the darkness of this world, the evil all around us, steals our joy and cripples our resolve.
Other Voices
How Donald Trump’s Trade Wars Could Lead to a Great Depression
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Imperial President or Emperor With No Clothes? By Nomi Prins
Leaders are routinely confronted with philosophical dilemmas. Here’s a classic one for our Trumptopian times: If you make enemies out of your friends and friends out of your enemies, where does that leave you? What does winning (or losing) really look like? Is a world in which walls of every sort encircle America’s borders a goal worth seeking?
Editorials & Actions
Intimate Violence and the Violence of Intimacy: Reflections on the Israeli TV Show Fauda
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by Aryeh Cohen
The Israeli show Fauda has become a celebrated example of a veritable renaissance in Israeli television. After much anticipation following its critically acclaimed inaugural season, the second season dropped at Netflix on May 24. This hit show follows an elite unit of the Israeli secret service known as mistarvim [undercover soldiers disguised as Arabs] as they hunt terrorists in the West Bank. The New York Times gushed: ״The grittiest, tightest, most lived-in thrillers come from Israel, and ‘Fauda … is the current standard-bearer. … and while the outcome is predictable, the story ventures into the lives and minds of characters on all sides of the conflict.” Lior Raz and Avi Issachoroff have claimed that the show’s authenticity has brought it fans from all sides of the Israel/Palestine conflict.
Editorials & Actions
Beyt Tikkun Member Cecilia Wambach Featured in SF Chronicle for work with refugees
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Beyt Tikkun Synagogue-Without-Walls members were inspired at our High Holiday services last year when Beyt Tikkun member Cecilia Wambach, a retiree, reported on her volunteer work with children refugees on the Greek island of Lesbos who had escaped from Syria and Afghanistan. Today, June 18, the S.F. Chronicle featured her work in an article depicting how she had organized others to come to Lesbos with her and provide teaching and emotional support to these young people, many of them suffering from the PTSD that led to or was caused by their loss of home and in many cases family as well. Please read the story about her at https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/East-Bay-retirees-volunteer-in-Greece-with-13001205.php
And while you are at it, please register for High Holidays with Beyt Tikkun this year at www.tikkun.org/hhd
Editorials & Actions
Uri Avnery reflects on Yitzhak Rabin, the assassinated prime minister of Israel
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Editor’s note: Uri Avnery is the leader of the Israeli peace movement organization Gush Shalom.–rabbilerner.tikkun@gmail.com
The Siamese Twins
16/06/18
After commenting on most of the episodes on the first Israeli Prime Ministers in Raviv Drucker’s TV series “The Captains”, I must come back to the one whose episode I have not yet covered: Yitzhak Rabin. Let me state right from the beginning: I liked the man. He was a man after my own heart: honest, logical, straightforward, to the point. No nonsense, no small talk. You entered his room, he poured you a straight whisky (seemed to me he detested water), got you seated, and asked a question that compelled you to come straight to the point.
Editorials & Actions
A Poor People’s Campaign Activist Reports on Its Reality in Greensboro North Carolina
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A Greensboro Social Justice Activist on the Poor People’s Campaign
We are two weeks into a six-week season launch of moral resistance and revival when my friend and mentor of nearly fifty years, Reverend Nelson Johnson, brings those assembled up to date. His words thrill me when he says that the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival “has the greatest potential of any grassroots movement in the nation to shift the moral narrative and transform our country.”
Launched on May 14th, under the leadership of Co-Chairs Rev. Dr. William Barber and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharris, the first phase of the Poor People’s Campaign concludes on June 23, 2018, when a mass mobilization will bring thousands of people from states around the country to the US Capitol in Washington, DC. They will come as part of a movement that demands a moral awakening for our country. Many more, undoubtedly, will join the current foot soldiers of this righteous campaign. To those justice-loving folks assembled in Greensboro, NC, and already feeling the angst of our troubled times, an awareness of the dangerous and critical point we have reached was perhaps the reason they became affiliated with the two-year old local organization, Democracy Greensboro, in the first place.
Editorials & Actions
Israeli Mental Health Professionals on Recent Events in Gaza
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Editor’s Note: Many Americans and American Jews rejoice in encountering the psychologists in Israel who are retaining sanity in the midst of so much brutality and craziness.–Rabbi Michael Lerner rabbilerner.tikkun@gmail.com
Israeli mental health professionals’ statement regarding the recent events in Gaza
22.05.18
We invite mental health professionals around the world to sign, by filling the form below, the following statement, which was initiated by the members of the Israeli group Psychoactive – Mental Health Professionals for Human Rights.As members of Psychoactive – Mental Health Professionals for Human Rights, we wish to join our colleagues from the Arab Psychological Association in condemning the Israeli military activity within the Gaza Strip and the massive sniper fire that was directed at unarmed protesters during the Great Return March in Gaza. We express our deep sorrow for the hurt inflicted on Palestinian protesters and are gravely concerned about the disastrous physical and psychological consequences of the massive use of arms against unarmed people. The events in Gaza have taken place in the context of a continuous siege that has severely limited the residents’ freedom of movement and their political rights, in addition to reducing their access to drinkable water, electricity and medical treatment. On the backdrop of the grave suffering caused by these conditions, and the lack of prospects for a better future, many Gazan Palestinians feel the need to resist even if that means risking their lives. In situations of continuous oppression, witnessing and validation of the traumatic experiences are of great importance.