Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/category/religion-spirituality/page/42/)
Posts about religion and spirituality.
SNAP, the acronym for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, more commonly known in this country as the Food Stamp Program, suffered in November a nearly five percent cut to entitlements for the millions of Americans who depend on the program for daily sustenance. A Jewish Renewal community on the upper west side of Manhattan, joined others across the country in a five day commitment to curtail their food expenditures to no more than $5.00 a day.
This achievement-compassion nexus can make one’s head spin. A writer friend, Tarn, however, has an approach I admire: she always seems to consider her writing in a spiritual light, as part of her service and connection to others, not just a race for acclaim.
I have been thinking about that secret meeting Mayor De Blasio had with AIPAC, the meeting Andrew Sullivan brilliantly analyzed here.
And the more I think about it, the happier the meeting makes me. The reason is simple. Both De Blasio and AIPAC decided that the meeting should be kept top secret. De Blasio kept it off his schedule and banned reporters from the room. AIPAC did the same.
Rabbi Dr. Haviva Ner-David’s Shmaya Mikveh is Israel’s only pluralistic mikveh. It offers an inclusive spiritual environment to a wide variety of visitors who are often excluded from the state’s public mikvehs.
Pope Francis and the Vatican are playing a game of ruthless realpolitik on Syria. That’s good for Bashar al-Assad, bad for everyone who believes in the sanctity of human life.
Picture a world where politics is not so polarized. Imagine that the American people are flat out in favor of a plan that could lift more than a million of their neighbors out of poverty. And they’re arriving at this position not out of narrow self-interests—most Americans aren’t poor—but for essentially moral reasons. Actually, not much imagination is required. At least not when it comes to public opinion on a perennial issue: the minimum wage.
Before death, we all need to first come to peace with all that is undone. I mean real peace now; peace that no part of us or our work is ever done.
Recently, due to my writing on the issue of boycotts and Israel, I was asked by a prominent Jewish organization to make a public, political statement before being allowed into its building to speak about my book.
What is worth discerning as 2013 draws to a close? The discerning eye perceives themes that don’t make headlines, yet may turn out to be the most determinative.
Let us agree that science has its way of seeing what is so, and freeing the mind. May the human species never abandon that lens or what can be learned looking through it– but science cannot save us; science does not look within.