What You Can Do

By Rabbis Arthur Waskow & Jeff Sultar*

There are three levels of wisdom through which Hanukkah invites us to address the planetary dangers of the global climate crisis – what some of us call "global scorching" because "warming" seems so pleasant, so comforting.

We can encode these teachings into actions we take to heal the earth, each of the eight days.

1. The Talmud's legend about using one day’s oil to meet eight days' needs: a reminder that if we have the courage to change our life-styles to conserve energy, it will sustain us.

2. The vision of Zechariah (whose prophetic passages we read on Shabbat Hanukkah) that the Temple Menorah was itself a living being, uniting the world of "nature" and "humanity" – for it was not only fashioned in the shape of a Tree of Light, as Torah teaches, but was flanked by two olive trees that fed olive oil directly into it.

ELEVEN STEPS ON THE SACRED PATH
TOWARD THE INTERFAITH
PEACEMAKING FAST
ON OCTOBER 8

1. Read the Call at http://www.shalomctr.org/node/1269 and share it with others. You can use the brief version you will find at the end of this letter. If you are the clergyperson of a congregation, place a phone call to and arrange to meet with the clergypersons or leaders of religious communities other than your own -- to explore arrangements such as those below. (If you are not clergy yourself, you could place the calls anyway or ask your clergyperson to do so.) Those who agree to plan this could become an informal "planning committee" for the event.

Dear Co-searcher, Co-builder, in our work for peace and healing for the world --

The Shalom Center acts like a tugboat nudging and noodging large ocean liners to move in a new direction. Three ocean liners –- the official American Jewish world, the multireligious world, and the (smaller) world of the Left and the antiwar movement. (Details below, in this message.)

This "Tugboat Shalom" is doing YOUR work. To do it we need YOUR support. PLEASE CLICK ON THE "DONATE NOW" BUTTON ON THE RIGHT-HAND SIDE OF THIS PAGE, NEAR THE TOP OF THE PAGE.

Our tugboat has successfully "noodged" these ocean liners, in three "oceans" we have been navigating:

Dear friends,

How do we announce a major religious event, such as the October 8 Fast to move America from conquest to community, from violence to reverence?

When the steering committee of the Fast began discussing this, our first response was the conventional one in American society –- a press conference.

But then we recalled that there are ancient traditions for making the announcement of such a religious act itself a religious act. In the Talmud, for example, there is described a way of Calling a Communal Fast in Time of Calamity. (The calamity might be a drought, a famine, a war.)

WE CALL FOR A NATION-WIDE FAST ON OCTOBER 8
TO DISCOVER THE TRUE AMERICA;

TO MOVE FROM CONQUEST TO COMMUNITY,
FROM VIOLENCE TO REVERENCE

A Call from the Tent of Abraham, Hagar, & Sarah

America stands in great danger of becoming addicted to violence, at home and overseas.

Pervasive violence in American culture, society, and policy is expressed in mass murders like those at Columbine and Virginia Tech; in daily murders on the streets of our cities; in physical and sexual abuse in families and communities; in the obsession of our media with grotesque violence; in our government's decision to wage an unnecessary, morally abhorrent, and disastrous war; in its effort to make torture a legitimate instrument of policy; indeed, most lethal of all, in the ecocidal violence we are imposing on the earth itself.

Dear friends of all faiths and communities,

If you want to sign on to the Call for the Interfaith Fast, please write to Office@shalomctr.org and explain what religious congregation, organization, or community you are working with. PLEASE ALSO SIGN UP AND DESCRIBE THE EVENT YOU ARE PLANNING, BY CLICKING TO --

Http://www.INTERFAITHFAST.ORG

Shalom, salaam, peace –
Rabbi Arthur Waskow

FROM CONQUEST TO COMMUNITY,
FROM VIOLENCE TO REVERENCE:
AN INTERFAITH FAST on OCTOBER 8
TO END THE WAR IN IRAQ

We call on all Americans to join in fasting from dawn to dusk on Monday, October 8, to call for an end to the Iraq War. On this day, people of faith in local communities across our nation will act as catalysts to move America from conquest to community and from violence to reverence.

Dear Friends, The smoke of burning fossil fuels is darkening our planet, creating the climate crisis of global scorching. From that darkness we can grow the light of a broader and deeper world community.
We can all join in healing the earth by changing what we do in our own households, our own congregations, and through social action, our whole society.
Please join us in the Green Menorah Covenant and use the Donate button to help us with the (tax-deductible) money that it takes. With blessings of light and joy -- Arthur