The Shalom Center - Commentary

40TH ANNIVERSARY INTERFAITH FREEDOM SEDER, MARCH 29, 2009: A SEDER FOR THE EARTH

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:16:41 -0500

By Arlene Goldbard & Rabbi Arthur Waskow
[Goldbard is a writer and expert on cultural change and is chair of the Board of the Shalom Center; Waskow is its Executive Director.]

In every generation, Pharaoh;
In every generation, Freedom

INTRODUCTION

The Shalom Center will hold a Fortieth Anniversary Interfaith Freedom Seder on March 29, 2009, ten days before Passover, two weeks before Easter, and less than a week before the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King's death, infusing each of these events with new energy and depth.

A flagship Seder in Washington, DC, will draw national attention to the project, highlighting the many local Fortieth Anniversary Freedom Seders held simultaneously in communities around the U.S., uniting people of all faiths and races who love justice in a common dedication to equality, to a fair and humane economy and to peace.

Bankers, the Bible, & the Bail-out

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 07:38:18 -0400

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow

Hard-headed Bankers or Masters of Disaster?
Sacred Economics -- Is it Silly?
Hard-headed Economics -- Is it Breaking our Heads?

If you listen to the hard-headed people who presumably keep us prosperous, Biblical and Quranic economics are, of course, quaint and unrealistic. They're based on romantic ideas about benefiting the poor, the landless, the outcast. Good for motivating open-hearted charity; bad for making hard-headed decisions necessary to run a successful economy.

Right. Which is why the hard-headed folks have created a crazy economic yo-yo skidding on the edge of massive disaster, in which the worst-hit will of course not be the Wall Street / Washington power-houses but the rest of us.

Elections, Kings, Wars, & Justice

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 07:38:59 -0400

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow

As the American people faces up to the challenges of the extraordinary Presidential and Congressional election of 2008, this week's Torah portion (Shoftim) offers some profound and precise standards for deciding what to do.

This election is only slightly extraordinary because a woman and a Black person are on the national tickets. Much more extraordinary are the profound issues of centralized power and democratic process that we face.

First off, the Torah portion asserts (Deut.16: 20), "Justice, justice shall you pursue. " Why "justice" twice? To remind us that "Just results can only be achieved by just means." Even the pursuit by any political party or candidate of goals they fervently affirm are "just" cannot be done by suppressing voter turnout or by assassinating the characters of their opponents.

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.

Copyright information for Heschel passages

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 08:34:21 -0400

All material by Abraham Joshua Heschel in tbis section of the Website is under copyright by Dr. Susannah Heschel and is reprinted here with permission. For permission to reprint any of this material, consult with Dr. Heschel at Dartmouth University.

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.)

New Book: "The Tent of Abraham: Stories of Hope & Peace for Jews, Christians, and Muslims"

Wed, 16 Aug 2006 12:38:14 -0400

Dear Friends,

In 2004, as religious animosities worsened around the globe, I joined with Sister Joan Chittister, a world-renowned Benedictine nun, and Murshid Saadi Shakur Chisti (Neil Douglas-Klotz), a Muslim Sufi who has written a remarkable series of books on Aramaic, Gnostic, and Sufi spirituality --

-- to write a book called THE TENT OF ABRAHAM: STORIES OF HOPE AND PEACE FOR JEWS, CHRISTIANS, & MUSLIMS.

We sent the manuscript to Karen Armstrong. She was so excited by the book that she wrote a Preface for it.

It was (June 2006) published by Beacon Press and won an enthusiastic "Starred Review" from the Library Journal. That review and others are below.

Emerging Torah of Same-Sex Marriage

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 06:46:07 -0400

Rabbi Arthur Waskow

Twice in the Torah portion of "Acharei mot" we are told, "You shall not lie with a man as in lying with a woman." (Lev. 18: 22 and 20: 13). Today this has become perhaps the world's most contentious Torah teaching, far beyond the Jewish people.

Some have argued it prohibits all male-male sexuality. Others have argued that the verse must mean something else, for this "lying with" seems anatomically impossible. Is it only about casual or ritual homosexuality, not committed relationships? How did some of the greatest rabbis of the "Golden Age" in Spain write glowing erotic poems about male-male sex?

STRANGE FIRE, ALL-CONSUMING COMMITMENT

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 08:46:26 -0400

By Rabbi Phyllis Berman

The traditional synagogue reading from the Torah for Shabbat Shemini includes the passage in which two sons of the High Priest, Aaron, bring "strange fire" as an offering to God, and are consumed in an instant as if they had become the burnt offering. (Lev. 10)

Though most traditional commentators focus on what Nadav and Abihu did "wrong" in offering "strange fire" that caused them to be consumed, I go in a completely different direction.

I think about "strange", that which is unfamiliar or unknown, like a "stranger" or an idea before it's become popular. I think about how innovators -- in science, in spirituality, in music and art, in loving -- are ahead of their time, inspired by and absorbed by that which most others might consider "strange". I think about how, especially when one is creative, one can become totally consumed by the creative process.

The Prophetic Green Menorah

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 08:52:50 -0400

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow *

On Shabbat Hanukkah, we read the passage from the Prophet Zechariah that envisions the future Great Menorah, taking its sacred place in a rebuilt Holy Temple after the Babylonian Captivity. (We read the same Haftarah for Shabbat Behaalotekha.)

Zechariah, in visionary, prophetic style, goes beyond the Torah's description of the original Menorah (literally, a Light-bearer). That Menorah was planned as part of the portable Shrine, the Mishkan, in the Wilderness.

First Zechariah describes the Menorah of the future that he sees: "All of gold, with a bowl on its top, seven lamps, and seven pipes leading to the seven lamps." It sounds like the original bearer of the sacred Light. But then he adds a new detail: "By it are two olive trees, one on the right of the bowl and one on the left." (4: 2-3)

GOD SAID TO NOAH: An Old/ New Song to Avert a New Flood

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 08:15:27 -0500

GOD SAID TO NOAH*

Melody and some words, traditional; remainder by Rabbi Arthur Waskow *

God said to Noah, The earth's getting hotter, hotter,
God said to Noah, The earth's getting hotter, hotter,
Yet she is My (clap) beloved daughter, daughter -
Children of the Lord.

CHORUS: Rise and shine and give God the glory glory
Rise and shine and give God the glory glory
Rise and shine and (clap!) give God the glory glory
Children of the Lord!

People are making My air too smoky, smoky
People are making My air too smoky, smoky

Hanukkah, Oil, & the Green Menorah: Talking Points for Sermons and Op-Ed Pieces

Sun, 16 Dec 2007 09:18:24 -0500

By Rabbi Jeff Sultar & The Shalom Center's Green Menorah Covenant Campaign
(215) 438-2983 Greenmenorah@shalomctr.org

During Hanukkah, we celebrate the use of one day’s worth of oil to meet 8 days’ needs. Hanukkah can be seen, then, as the festival that has the most to teach and inspire us about energy use.

And it couldn’t come at a better time:

• We are living in the beginning stages of a global climate crisis caused by human activity.
• Senators Joseph Lieberman and John Warner are right now putting forth a bill, the “America’s Climate Security Act,” which is the first piece of legislation with the realistic potential to begin addressing the global climate crisis, though it also needs to be strengthened.

When Abraham Sees God in Oak Trees

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 07:30:40 -0400

When Abraham Sees God in Oak Trees

Dear Friends,

The Torah portion Vayeira (Gen. 18:1 through 22: 24) itakes its name" from its first word. This word is usually translated "appeared," but it comes from the root for "see," and the same root appears in a different form right afterwards.

The second word is "YHWH." That is usually translated "the Lord," but since this sacred unpronounceable Name with no vowels can only be "pronounced" by breathing --- "Yyyyhhhhwwwwhhhh" - I translate it as "the Breath of Life" or "the Wind/ Breath/ Spirit of the world."

The first sentence says "YHWH brought-about-being-SEEN to [Abraham] in [b'] the oaks of Mamre."

The Eclipse of Wonder: Abraham Joshua Heschel and Our Ecological Crisis

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 12:45:03 -0400

A sermon for Kol Nidre 5768
By Rabbi Burt Jacobson

My fiancé Diane and I set aside the last Sunday in July as a day to spend together. Our plan was to drive to Marin County, and to hike on Mt. Tamalpais. It was a lovely sun-drenched morning. After I woke up, meditated and prayed, and had eaten my breakfast, I turned my cell phone on. There was a message from my brother Stuart who, with his wife Jean, were vacationing in Colorado, staying in a cabin in the mountains.

"Hi! Just calling to say I love you. This morning I was sitting on the porch looking out over the valley a few hundred feet below, and a butterfly came up and landed on my hand. I watched as the butterfly scoped out my hand with his tongue -- for about two to three minutes. Then, it flew away. Within seconds a bee flew up to me, about two feet away and, hanging in the air, wings flapping in a blur, directly facing me, looked at me for a minute or longer, turned maybe 150 degrees and looked into the window of our cabin for another minute or so, turned back to me for another minute or two and then flew off. Well, I love you. Take care . . ."