Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/category/generalnews/page/48/)
Would prefer not to use this at all. It’s a default and can’t be removed.
On an alarmingly milder-than-normal January day this month, about 100 religious leaders representing Jewish, Christian, Catholic, Islamic, Native American, Buddhist traditions gathered in the historic New York Avenue Presbyterian Church before processing in a silent march two blocks to the north side of the White House for a “pray-in for the climate.”
On Wednesday, January 9, nearly 2,000 people rallied against fracking outside of Governor Cuomo’s State of the State Address, in Albany, New York.
The tragic events Friday in Connecticut bring with them a panoply of emotions; everything from grief to anger to fear to shock. As humans we want to understand and we often think that means dissecting the life of the shooter to either find some shred of humanity and some emotional resonance so that we can relate in some small way or find something defective in his chemical makeup that makes him so far from us that we don’t have to imagine someone like him sitting on our continuum of humanity.
I. Wearing Blinders
I grew up listening to stories of Jewish exceptionalism, stories that were both beautiful and exceptional. These stories I grew up with weren’t biblical tales of chosenness, nor were they Zionist visions of Israel. Instead, they were tales of progressive heroism, tales of American heroism, stories of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel marching alongside Martin Luther King, Jr. from Selma to Montgomery in 1965, stories of Gertrude Weil organizing women’s suffrage leagues in the early 1900s, stories of Jewish immigrants’ integral role in sparking America’s labor movement. They were stories of Jews fighting for the human rights, equal rights and dignity of those oppressed, maligned or ignored. They were stories of progressive activism spurred by Jewish values.
We keep praying for peace. The definition of madness is to continue doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. But,
We keep praying for peace. Wars rage in the Middle East. War is a wicked cruel deception that ultra-violence, that organized murder, that death, devastation and waste can bring peace. Yet,
We keep praying for peace.
Grieving and mourning is the birthplace of healing, repair, and transformation. Once we begin our healing process we will begin to open our hearts with compassion to the experience and suffering of Palestinians.
Interior Minister Eli Yishai, in a moment of disturbing candor, revealed what is for many in Netanyahu’s government the ultimate goal of its escalating military campaign on Gaza:
“The goal of the operation is to send Gaza back to the Middle Ages. Only then will Israel be calm for forty years.” Now, part of Yishai’s bombast comes from the fact that, as a known racist and head of the ultra-orthodox Shas party, he’d feel much more comfortable in the Middle Ages himself. However, his statement reveals an essential truth few Israeli leaders dare to articulate. And that truth is this: the current military throttling of Gaza has less to do with security and more to do with destabilizing Gaza as much as possible.
I refuse to bow to the pressures of ethnocentrism. Now is the time to turn to each other for moral support.
Rabbi Eric Yoffie has penned a Haaretz opinion piece directed at progressive, U.S. Jews that is so deluded and insidious, it’s as though it was written in the same political and psychological vacuum inhabited by Netanyahu’s government. Yoffie, former head of the Union for Reform Judaism, argues that progressives should champion Israel’s “get tough” Gaza stance. It’s a call he makes using shockingly misguided and narrow arguments. It’s a call I, and all progressives, should reject. Here’s why:
First, Yoffie fails to understand the strategic motivations behind Israel’s current “Pillar of Defense” campaign.
Yes, and it’s called prayer. And its power does not depend on faith in God or sacred texts, but on the passionate commitment of the person who prays. As Kierkegaard cautions: “Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays.” Prayers may be voiced in anguish or wrapped in silence, mumbled dutifully or constructed with care, put to melody or tears. They can be wordless, as Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said that when he marched for justice with Martin Luther King “my feet were praying.”