Tikkun (https://www.tikkun.org/category/politics__society/page/42/)
Editor’s note: Thanks to Rabbi David Seidenberg for developing this ritual. I would only add one thing: another way to show caring for the animals with whom we share this rapidly shrinking planet is to NOT EAT THEM!–Rabbi Michael Lerner
Honoring the Animals With Whom We Share This Planet
This year, the first of Elul 5774, Rosh Hashanah LaBeheimot — the New Year for the Animals, begins the evening of August 26, 2014 and continues through August 27.
Misinterpretation due to language barriers allows Israelis and Palestinians to dehumanize each other. In order to realistically begin a movement toward the creation of more holistic language learning programs, we must draw a tight connection between high-level negotiations and grassroots language programs.
The Zionist movement was not an innocent victim of Arab fanaticism and antipathy to Jews. It was an active participant and initiator of an intercommunal conflict which resulted in the expulsion of a million Palestinians in 1948 and then 1967, which has produced a brutal and illegal occupation that continues and even intensifies to this day. Do you think this is fair, Mr. Voight?
Editor’s Note: We at Tikkun oppose military solutions to the world’s problems. Please read our proposed Global Marshall Plan at www.tikkun.org/gmp. –Rabbi Michael Lerner
Hillary Clinton’s Foreign Policy Deception
Jeffrey D. Sachs
August 13, 2014
It’s said that the best defense is a good offense. This strategy probably lies behind Hillary Clinton’s recent takedown of President Barack Obama’s foreign policy. After all, Clinton was a lead architect of that policy as Secretary of State, and the policies that she espoused until recently now lie in shambles. The most aggressive of her claims, that Obama’s unwillingness to give support to the Syrian rebels has led to the rise of ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) — is not true.
A staff blogger/writer at Commentary, Seth Mandel, read an excerpt of our book and made broad generalizations about its ideas and arguments in a recent critical article. Here, we scrutinize his review and elaborate on the merits of a parallel states solution.
Everything in the world is moving (and always has been moving) towards expansion and fulfillment of our potential – which is to become ever more like the One who created us. Wars, tragedies, miseries are swallowed up in this larger movement toward Higher Understanding, which is pounded out on the anvil of our suffering and ignorance. In this, my first article in Tikkun, I’ve chosen to share my painting which interprets the story David and Goliath, along with my commentary. As I suggested above, it offers a wonderful illustration of the essence of the most important battlefield of all, namely the battle within us to win our soul.
Sites of public and higher education are under a massive assault. Let’s respond with an imaginative new discourse of critique and possibility.
Another Way of Seeing: Essays on Transforming Law, Politics, and Culture by Peter Gabel. Review by Kim Chernin.
While I appreciate these serious, thoughtful responses to my book by Roger Gottlieb and Kim Chernin, I do not quite see myself reflected in their respective descriptions of the role of spirit (Gottlieb), or the role of hope (Chernin). My claim is that these are not abstract ideas that I attribute to human reality, but that they are concretely revealed by that human reality if we will but embrace “another way of seeing” that makes the presence of both spirit and hope visible in that human reality. The central idea of my book is that human beings are not actually “individuals” in the liberal sense of our existing in separate spheres as disconnected monads, but are rather inherently united by a social bond, a “fraternity” as the present pope calls it, that seeks to make itself manifest in the world through the experience of “mutual recognition.” Because of the legacy of the Fear of the Other that has shaped our cultural conditioning throughout history thus far—a fear reflected in our own individual lives through the social formation of our individual egos—our cultural memory inclines us to see the other as a threat. But coexisting with this fearful impulse in every human interaction and at every moment transcending the fearful impulse, is an unconditioned, wholly original, spontaneous movement toward a new and sudden recognition of one another in which we would become fully present to each other, and in which we would more fully realize ourselves as the source of each other’s completion. {{{subscriber}}} [trackrt]
How to Read the Rest of This Article
The text above was just an excerpt.
When did liberal religion start valuing personal autonomy over collective values of love and justice? We need to prioritize a new kind of freedom.
Another Way of Seeing: Essays on Transforming Law, Politics, and Culture by Peter Gabel
Review by Roger S. Gottlieb
What happens when you put a daughter of the Holocaust among Arab trauma workers just back from the Syrian crisis? A powerful personal story.
After years of Obama’s capitulation to the corporate, military, and “security” elites, Dems may have a hard time selling themselves as populist champions.
A Prayer for Peace
Avinu ve’ emoteynu sheh ba shamayim, tzur Yisra’el ve’ go’aloe
Our Father and Mother energies in the cosmos, the rock of Israel and our salvation
Bless all the peoples of the Middle East with peace, security, environment sanity, and a sense of being genuinely cared for by the world and by the God/dess of all flesh, however they conceive of this God or Goddess, whatever names or language they give to the ultimate source of love and meaning in the universe. In this hour of war, violence, and pain, we reaffirm the humanity and decency of all the people on our planet, and our ability to see the humanity and God-presence in the Palestinian people, the Israeli people, and all people on the planet. We understand that each of the many sides of the conflicts tearing our world apart today have their own legitimacy, but we also know that violence cannot be the path to a peaceful and safe world. We may be outraged at the behavior of governments, political parties, or groups acting in hurtful ways, but we will not accept any attempt to generalize that righteous indignation into generalities about all people of a certain nation, race, religion, sexual orientation, or any other such grouping. We ask you, the Force of Healing and Transformation in the Universe, Yud Hey Vav Hey, ALLAH, the Cosmic Christ, Krishna, whatever name people give to this Force, to open up the hearts of all humanity to each other and to the earth itself.
http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/latest-columns/20140629-refusing-sanctuary-to-children-in-need.ece
Refusing sanctuary to children in need
Exactly 75 years and one month ago the St. Louis, a German trans-Atlantic liner carrying 938 Jewish refugees, was turned away from the United States, forced to return to Europe. U.S. law didn’t allow them sanctuary. Today we are preparing to send 45,000 children back to Central American countries controlled by drug cartels that routinely torture, rape and kill children who refuse to work for them. So routinely, so often are children menaced that their families sent them away, alone, across thousands of miles on just the slimmest of hopes that they might be safe.