The Shalom Center - What You Can Do

Dancing Freedom in the Passover Seder

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 08:44:41 -0400

Please feel free ("feeling free" is what Pesach is all about!) to forward this post as you please. If you like any of these suggestions, please also note our request for your support and use the coupon at the end of the post to help out. And we'd welcome you to our Website. Thanks!!

We are sending seven different moments or practices for you to considering adding to your Pesach celebration.

Blessings for a sweet and liberating Pesach for you and for the world --
Arthur
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A. The Freedom Plate

Several years ago, Martha Hausman proposed that a special plate be set aside next to the traditional Seder plate, on which could be placed physical objects brought by every participant in the Seder as a symbol of her/ his liberation THIS YEAR from Mitzraiim.

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.

The Green Menorah Covenant

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 05:50:10 -0400

What is a "Green Menorah"?

The Green Menorah is the symbol of a covenant among Jewish communities and congregations to renew the miracle of Hanukkah in our own generation: Using one day's oil to meet eight days' needs. By 2020, cutting US oil consumption by seven-eighths.

HEALING THE EARTH: THE GREEN MENORAH COVENANT

The Green Menorah is the symbol of a covenant among Jewish communities and congregations to renew the miracle of Hanukkah in our own generation: Using one day's oil to meet eight days' needs: doing our part so that by 2020, US oil consumption is cut by seven-eighths.

The Eight Days of Hanukkah: Eight Actions to Heal the Earth through the Green Menorah Covenant

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 08:56:09 -0400

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.

11 Steps toward the October 8 Interfaith Fast

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 05:47:12 -0400

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.

Please support the "Tugboat Shalom"!

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 08:54:09 -0400

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:

Communal Fast in a Time of Calamity: A Multireligious Call

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 06:05:02 -0400

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.)

TO DISCOVER THE TRUE AMERICA: Fasting on Oct. 8 to challenge the culture of Violence

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 06:06:12 -0400

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.

INTERFAITH FAST TO MAKE PEACE IN IRAQ: October 8. FROM CONQUEST TO COMMUNITY, FROM VIOLENCE TO REVERENCE

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 05:54:05 -0400

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.

Through darkness into light: the Joy of Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Eid

Fri, 09 Mar 2007 08:19:22 -0500

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

Beyond Oil: Helping America Break the Oiloholic Addiction

Thu, 01 Feb 2007 16:26:21 -0500

Beyond Oil:
Helping America break the Oiloholic addiction

The President of the United States has acknowledged that America is addicted to oil.

His solution? More Oil – Drill offshore, drill in the Alaska reserve, -

But that is a lethal solution. It's like saying, "Yes, I'm addicted to nicotine. Pack a day. Gives me the shakes. Sell me a couple more packs to get me through the night, will ya?"

Like any addiction, oil is convenient. Comforting. Delicious. And it kills. It is choking children – in an epidemic of asthma. It is choking the planet -- through "global scorching."

THE PEACE OF ABRAHAM, HAGAR, & SARAH: Sharing Sacred Seasons, Fall 2007

Sat, 09 Jun 2007 05:14:35 -0400

THE PEACE OF ABRAHAM, HAGAR, & SARAH:
SHARING SACRED SEASONS, 2007

Shalom, salaam, peace! --

In the fall of 2007, several sacred seasons of the Abrahamic faiths will come together. At a moment of history when religious conflict and violence have reemerged bearing lethal dangers for each other and our planet, God has given our spiritual and religious traditions an unusual gift of sacred time.

Let us celebrate this rare confluence of THE PEACE OF ABRAHAM, HAGAR, & SARAH by praying and learning with each other and by acting together to –-

SEEK PEACE, PURSUE JUSTICE,
FEED THE POOR, HEAL THE EARTH,