Judaism

Swimming The Ocean of Night: Welcoming the Fall Season

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We are entering the time of dreaming, of storytelling, of playing with the landscapes of the imagination, the fabric of our own subconscious. As we harvest the bounty of the summer growth, we each have our own personal harvests to gather in, internally pulling on the threads of our own being, reflecting on memories from the season that has just finished. The gates are open for all memories, and it is usually the ones we try to push away which will arrive the loudest. It is in the darkness of night where we meet our own reflection, our own shadow.

Judaism

Yom Kippur: Time and Teshuva – A Place for Healing

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I. Time and Teshuva
In the shiur regarding Rosh Hashana, we saw how the shofar connected us to a moment outside of time. This radicalization of the perception of time bears an even more immediate relationship to the concept of Yom Kippur and its central component, Teshuva, repentance, as the word teshuva is roughly translated. We will argue that Teshuva means a whole lot more, a restructuring of one’s narrative, an ability to step outside the linearity of experience in order to set things right in one’s life and in the world. The un-linkage of our normal perception of the flow of time to the Yom Kippur experience is present in the original verse describing the day, as summarized in BT Pesahim 68:
Mar son of Ravina would fast on all the days of the year except for Purim, Shavuout, and the eve of Yom Kippur (the ninth of Tishrei, as opposed to the tenth, which is Yom Kippur), since it says (Vayikra 23:32) “v’initem et nafshotayhem batisha’ lahodesh”- “and you shall deprive yourselves on the ninth of the month”- Is the fast actually on the ninth?

Judaism

Was Prophet Isaiah a Yiddishe Mama?

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During text study at one of our meetings of OS JUSTICE, the social justice committee I chair at Or Shalom Jewish Community in San Francisco, we discovered some secret verses of a not-so-minor prophet named Yiddishe Mama Isaiah. I’d like to share a little bit of it from chapter 58.

Inter-Culturalism

Blaming the Jews: Old Wine in a New Bottle

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In allowing themselves to be duped by a convicted con artist with a grudge against the Muslim world, the Journal and the AP have, through their own carelessness, played into stereotypes of wealthy Jews conspiring to subvert the institutions of the world — in this case the religion of Islam — in their age-old pursuit of global hegemony. And the spread of the violence and unrest throughout the Middle East in response to a bizarrely ham-handed video clip is more proof than anyone needs of the destructive potential of such stereotypes in today’s interconnected world.

art

Writing for Change in San Francisco

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At first, I was worried that a one-day conference wouldn’t be worth $99 or, at the last minute, $149, but the moment I was welcomed into the Unitarian church on Franklin, I received a nice string backpack containing three new books, all useful, and two, especially valuable. Already I had recouped $60! And there was much more. This is a conference I believe many Tikkun readers would appreciate. Hawken and the Seattle Protests: Writing That Changes the World
The best moment – Paul Hawken’s speech – came first.

Culture

Embracing the Shmita Cycle: A New Year Vision

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Shmita, literally translated as the ‘year of release’, and more widely known as the Sabbatical Year, is the focal point of Jewish earth-based traditions. Two years from now, on Rosh Hashana 5775 (which will be 2014), the cycle will once again enter into it’s 7th year, and the Shmita period will begin anew. And this is when things will get quite interesting.

Judaism

Some Thoughts for Rosh Hashana, the Hebrew New Year

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Shofar And Time

…If all time is eternally Present, All time is unredeemable… T. S. Eliot, Burnt Norton
Central to, or lurking behind, if you will, any discussion appropriate to Rosh Hashana is the problem of time. For while we all talk of Rosh Hashana as a celebration of the “New Year”, the texts, biblical and talmudic, are rather ambiguous as to what the actual date of creation is. One thing is certain- Rosh Hashana is not meant to signify the date of the creation of the world per se, but more likely, to commemorate the creation of humanity, at best, according to a talmudic debate. The talmud offers the following alternatives: Was the world created in Nisan, half a year away from Rosh Hashana, or was the world created the week before Rosh Hashana, that is, Rosh Hashana commemorates the sixth day of creation, and as such is meant to celebrate the creation of humanity?

Judaism

Drinking from the Well: Remembering our Origins

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To fully celebrate our birthday, to fully enter this new year in a humble, sacred way, with ‘right’ vision & intention, the invitation is to first sink into our depths and remember our origins; to recall our own selves as a part of life, inseparable as a member of Gaia’s community, sharing space with our brothers and sisters, the birds, trees, animals, clouds, flowing waters, rich soils, burning magma, shooting stars, billions of bacteria. And to remember the beauty of generosity from which we were first formed. As humans, can we return, re-member, acknowledge this web of life we are a part of & begin dancing this truth with all of creation? Not as savior. Not as creator. Not as destroyer. Just as humble, beautiful beings in this family of life. Can we transform our day of remembering into a celebratory new year for all beings we share this life with?

Judaism

Torah Commentary- Nitzavim 1. A Covenant of All of You 2. Face Hidden, Face Revealed

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Nitzavim I. A Covenant of All of You
“Today you all stand before Gd, your chiefs, your elders…all of Israel, your children, wives, the strangers in your midst, from the woodchopper to the water carrier, to enter into a covenant with God…”
With these words, the covenant between God and the people of Israel is established. But a covenant with whom?  With rabbis? Scholars? What does a “covenant” mean or establish? The answer to many of these questions are implicit in the verse itself, and the answers are not what we might expect, and perhaps we will understand why this passage was chosen to be the one always preceding Rosh Hashana, the Hebrew New Year.