A Christian Realist’s Lament

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For someone who interprets the course of events from a Christian realist perspective, the prospects for healing and repairing the world appear less than promising. That defines the position I happen to occupy. Although my admiration for those who insist otherwise knows no bounds, I find myself unable to enlist under their banner: over the course of many centuries, evil has proven to be too persistent; humankind’s penchant for folly too great; the allure of mammon too insidious; and power in all its variegated forms too corrupting.

2011

May We Always “Hold Each Other’s Arms Up”

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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.

2011

The Missing Ingredient

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It would appear, however, that Rabbi Papa was perhaps not really completely empathetic with the plight of his community. He was the head rabbi, so of course it was expected of him that he would take some kind of action, like decreeing a day of fasting and prayer. But social activism requires more than a functionary response to society’s maladies.

2011

Everything Is Alive

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“The affirmation of the divine unity aspires to reveal the unity in the world, in humankind, among nations, and in the entire content of existence, without any dichotomy between action and theory, between reason and the imagination. Even the dichotomies experienced will be unified through a higher enlightenment, which recognizes their aspect of unity and compatibility” (2:411).

2011

Reflections on Liberal Zionism

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America is not an “honest broker” nor is it working on a just solution to the conflict. Our government, largely as a result of pressure from our community, provides blanket support for Israel.

2011

Beyond Spiritual Narcissism

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Specifically, I have suggested two basic guidelines: the egocentrism test, which assesses the extent to which spiritual traditions, teachings, and practices free practitioners from gross and subtle forms of narcissism and self-centeredness; and the dissociation test, which evaluates the extent to which spiritual traditions, teachings, and practices foster the integrated blossoming of all dimensions of the person.

2010

Strange Land, New World

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I am the first Jew to live in this cloistered Benedictine monastery. I don’t blend. I wear a kippah everywhere I go, and I observe the Sabbath and all Jewish holidays. I’m studying to become a rabbi, and I live here in this remote community of Catholic monks vowed to chastity and obedience.

2010

Elements of a Philosophy for Diaspora Judaism

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Why be Jewish? Why join temples? Why bother to introduce our children to Jewish ideas and practices? Answers to these questions vary from person to person and from age to age, but the questions persist. The questions seem as perpetual as the Jewish people itself.

2010

The Presence of Living Organisms

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It is possible that the plant as a living and vital presence responds to the warmth and radiance of the sunlight and turns toward it responsively. This interpretation, which I favor, understands the plant as a spiritual-material unity rather than reducing the plant to the materialist dimension that is visible to the detached, scientific eye.

2010

Response to Noach Dzmura

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Dzmura’s arguments stand no chance of being adopted by the American mainstream any time soon. If we want to “move the needle” of public opinion, we need to make more moderate ones.

2010

Speaking Our Pain: Anguish, Wonder, and Comfort in the Psalms

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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.