The Shalom Center - Worlds of Change

Revered New Jersey Imam, Facing Deportation, Has Interfaith Support

Fri, 16 May 2008 09:35:57 -0400

By NY Times & Rabbi David Senter

[Rabbi Senter's comments on this case come after the NYT article.] ]

By TINA KELLEY and ELIZABETH DWOSKIN
New York Times April 24, 2008

PATERSON, N.J. — For a dozen years, Mohammad Qatanani has supported the members of the Islamic Center of Passaic County by speaking at funerals, hashing out ethical dilemmas and sometimes opening his home to domestic-violence victims at a moment’s notice.

Mohammad Qatanani, imam of the Islamic Center of Passaic County, faces possible deportation in a dispute over his application for permanent residency.

But now Dr. Qatanani, 44, the imam of the mosque here, requires the support of the members: he has been barred by federal immigration authorities from renewing his driver’s license, and must call on friends to ferry him to hospitals for visits with the sick among his flock. There are fund-raisers for him at the mosque. And after Friday prayers, the hugs the men give him seem to last extra long.

Toward a Jubilee Economy & Ecology in the Modern World

Mon, 12 May 2008 12:38:58 -0400

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow

[This essay is a chapter in Rabbi Waskow's book Godwrestling -- Round 2 (Jewish Lights, 1996). The book is available as a free gift from The Shalom Center, personally inscribed by Rabbi Waskow as you choose, if you use the Donate Now button on the right to make a tax-deductible contribution of $180 or more.

[At the end of this essay you will find citations on teachings from the Hebrew Bible & related materials toward a Jubilee Economics and Ecologics.]::

One lesson that we have discerned from studying the story of the Flood [see a previous chapter from Godwrestling -- Round 2] is that it is profoundly necessary for us to affirm and celebrate the cycles of life if we wish to preserve the cycles of life. Are those cycles now in danger? And if so, how can we affirm them?

The Spirituality of the Future by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi

Fri, 09 May 2008 04:34:34 -0400

Toward a New and Kerygmatic Credo
Zalman M. Schachter Shalomi

Chair of World Wisdom;
The Naropa Institute
Boulder CO.

This essay is a plea for research into the spirituality of the future and invitation for collaboration to bring this about.

Much of my perspective is based on my devotion to the Ribbono shel Olam, the divine Life-Spirit of Gaia. I come from a deeply spiritual Jewish formation in which the values of Tikkun Olam (Healing the planet) and the biblical command of Bal Tash’hit (not to destroy any natural resources) are an essential and constant feature.

In some ways I am on one foot, one of the last Mohicans of pre-holocaust Jewish mysticism and on the other foot I stand on concern with our future. Not only the future of our Jewish people and the continuity of its tradition and lineage but with the global future, our survival as humans on their way to the Great and divinizing metamorphosis.

YOM HASHOAH: MOURNERS' KADDISH IN TIME OF WAR AND VIOLENCE

Thu, 01 May 2008 23:19:33 -0400

May 1, 2008 is Yom HaShoah (the Day of Remembrance of the Nazi Holocaust), observed one day earlier in the Jewish calendar than usual, because of not wanting to observe it on Friday as Shabbat is coming into the world.

It seems especially fitting to use as the Mourners Kaddish for today a rendition in Aramaic, Hebrew, and English of the MOURNERS' KADDISH IN TIME OF WAR AND VIOLENCE that we at The Shalom Center have developed.(See three paragraphs below). Though it is of course a Jewish prayer, we offer the interpretive English translation below, in the hope it may be spiritually helpful for many people of many other traditions as well.

TORAH OF THE EARTH FOR ADDRESSING PUBLIC POLICY

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:45:33 -0400

(Notes by Rabbi Arthur Waskow, The Shalom Center)

These passages, with telegraphic divrei Torah, can help you root earth-healing policy talks and writing in Torah:

1. Creation: Humans are "adam," coming forth from earth, "adamah." The two are forever intertwined. (Gen 2:7)

2. Garden of Eden: God (Reality) provides extraordinary abundance ("Of every tree of the garden you may eat"); but we must show some self-restraint in using it ("Of the one tree in the midst of the garden, do not eat"). Gobbling up all that abundance brings disaster: The earth gives forth only thorns and thistles, humans have to toil with the sweat pouring down their faces to survive. (Gen. 2: 8-17)

Passover of the Nations: Haggadot to Heal the World

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 08:44:03 -0400

The Exodus from Pharaoh's tyranny, the Passover Seder that recalls it, and the Haggadah ("Telling") that guides the Seder are at the heart of Judaism and Jewish peoplehood. So it is not surprising that efforts to renew Judaism have, beginning in 1969, created a number of new Passover Seder rituals that are deliberately focused on healing some aspect of the wounded world.

Some remain available for those who are seeking to shape their own Haggadot and want to draw on them. (This not only includes Jews with a creative outlook on their own tradition, but increasing numbers of people from other spiritual paths who find some wisdom and empowerment in the Seder.)

PURIM, GOOD FRIDAY, & 40 YEARS ABIRTHING: FROM DISASTER TO DELIGHT

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 07:56:51 -0400

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow

Today (March 21, 2008) is a strange day in the dance of sun, moon, and earth that make up the Christian and Jewish calendars.

For Christians, it is Good Friday -- the remembrance of how the Roman Empire tortured to death a great and troublesome Rabbi, and the foreshadowing of how just three days later the Rabbi was reborn into life, and there began the process by which he came to be understood as God's Own Self.

For Jews, it is Purim -- a festival of pun and paradox, in which the central text is a parody of history, telling the story of how a courageous woman and her uncle chose civil disobedience to save their people from a genocide - and won. How a pompous, stupid king is bamboozled by an ambitious, arrogant , and genocidal Prime Minister -- one might almost say, Vice-President. How everything is turned topsy-turvy, so that the gallows where a Jewish leader was to be hanged becomes the death-place of their tormentor. How God never appears in this story that might seem miraculous.

Jeremiahs Old & New: Wright & "wrong"

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 07:16:57 -0400

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow

When you live in a country that for a week has been transfixed by the furious denunciations of America by Pastor Jeremiah Wright and furious denunciations of Pastor Jeremiah by much of America --

-- it is startling to read the original Jeremiah -- especially when his own furious denunciations of his own country are emblazoned for the special sacred Prophetic reading the same week.

(In Jewish tradition, on each Shabbat is read a portion of the Torah [the "Five Books of Moses"] and a Prophetic passage chosen long ago by the rabbis to underline or sometimes confront the message of the Torah portion.)

RAFFLING THE SHALOM QUILT: IN PEACE & BEAUTY I WILL SLEEP

Mon, 12 May 2008 10:53:09 -0400

RAFFLING THE SHALOM QUILT: IN WARMTH & BEAUTY I WILL SLEEP

Friends of peace & beauty –

One of the Psalms begins, "Of love & justice I will sing." Today, in the painful moments of working for peace despite a government determined on war, we need a psalm that goes –

"OF PEACE & BEAUTY I WILL SING!"

And we have one. It is a psalm in cloth – a Shalom Quilt made of dozens of T-shirts that have called out in colorful and quirky words and images for peace, justice, and the healing of our wounded earth. It is 68" x 76".

The Oven that Coiled Like a Snake

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 04:44:14 -0500

By Rabbi Phyllis Berman & Rabbi Arthur Waskow

[This story is from their book TALES OF TIKKUN: NEW JEWISH STORIES TO HEAL THE WOUNDED WORLD. It is available from Rowman & Littlefield or from The Shalom Center, 6711 Lincoln Drive, Philadelphia PA; Send a check for $13.95.]

On a warm spring evening in the town of Yavneh, dinner had just begun in the home of Imma Shalom and her husband Eliezer ben Hyrcanus. Now Imma Shalom was, as her name said, “Mother Peace.” When people came to her with arguments to settle, she would often say, “In my parents’ house I learned the Torah that ‘Both these words and those words are words of the Living God.’ But this is not enough. For if God is One, these words must somehow mean one thing. Let us learn the wisdom of this Unity.” So she would gently show how two different ways of understanding Torah could be brought into harmony.

Palestinian Health System in Gaza on Brink of Collapse, March 2, 2008

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 13:13:47 -0500

Physicians for Human Rights -Israel: Urgent Update: received March 2, 2008

Palestinian Health System in Gaza on Brink of Collapse

Israeli military forces commenced widespread operations against Gaza on 27.2.08, following the death of an Israeli civilian in a college campus in the south of Israel, and damage caused by a Qassam rocket to a hospital campus in the town of Ashqelon. As a result of these operations 101 Palestinians (according to Palestinian counts), the majority of whom were civilians, have been killed. Two Israeli soldiers have also been killed. This number of casualties is the highest since the start of the AlAqsa Intifada in 2000.

Obama on Israel, Palestine, Iran, etc.: Meeting with Official Jewish Leadership

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 10:09:18 -0500

Obama reaches out to Jewish leaders

By Ami Eden of the Jewish Telegraphic Association (JTA)
We've received a rough transcript that came from the Obama campaign of a
closed meeting that the candidate held Sunday in Cleveland with about 100
Jewish communal leaders. Whoever recorded the remarks was only able to get
Obama's answers, not the actual questions from the audience.

For the most part, Obama sought to reassure the audience — on Israel, Iran,
his church, his pastor, his foreign policy advisers, his religion. At the
same time, he picked a few spots to push back against some of his critics in

U. N ATOMIC AGENCY IS QUIETLY MANAGING TO DISARM IRAN

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 08:58:52 -0500

By Ray Takeyh and Joseph Cirincione

Financial Times (London)
February 27, 2008

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/06a1fa90-e4d7-11dc-a495-0000779fd2ac.html

It is a popular parlor game in Washington's corridors of power and
European chancelleries to deride Mohamed ElBaradei as a quixotic
bureaucrat determined to subvert the Western strategy of restraining
Iran's nuclear program. The latest International Atomic Energy Agency
report suggesting progress has been made by Iran is quietly disparaged by
the Bush administration as another clean pass for the rash theocracy. The
point that Mr. ElBaradei's critics miss is that he is judiciously

Obama, Romney, Bigotry, & Slander

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 09:48:52 -0400

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow,
Director of The Shalom Center

The Shalom Center by law may not, and doesn't, choose between candidates in an election. But there is no legal, ethical, or moral bar to our denouncing the use of religious slurs and slanders when they are used against any candidate. Or more than one, as is the case right now in American politics.

Indeed, we are morally REQUIRED to condemn such slanders. And so are all of us. To say it NOW, before slander casts its vote against decency and ALL America loses the Presidential election.

During the present Presidential campaign, slurs against the religious beliefs of at least two candidates -- Barack Obama and Mitt Romney -- became widespread.

New Curriculum & Ceremony for Teens on Climate Crisis : ELIJAH'S COVENANT BETWEEN THE GENERATIONS

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 11:58:13 -0500

The Shalom Center has published a curriculum and ceremony for Bar/ Bat Mitzvah and confirmation-age youth and families, on how the younger and older generations can work together to heal the earth from the dangers of global climate crisis. Below you will find testimonials about it from leaders of Jewish education and action. Below that you will find a coupon for ordering copies of the 60-page "Elijah's Covenant Between The Generations," and below that the Introduction by Rabbis Arthur Waskow and Jeff Sultar.

"Elijah's Covenant" [Brit Eliyahu] looks like an exciting and creative educational venture. Congratulations to the Shalom Center for this positive contribution toward raising environmental awareness among Jewish young people."