“What kind of society, exactly, do modern Republicans want?” – Robert Reich’s Blog

04 Sunday Dec 2011

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Ethics

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“I’ve been listening to Republican candidates in an effort to discern an overall philosophy, a broadly-shared vision, an ideal picture of America. They say they want a smaller government but that can’t be it.”

This is how Robert Reich begins his clearly written blog of last week, and then he tells us what today’s “regressive” Republican Party (as opposed to “conservative” Republican Party) is really all about. If you agree with me that this is a brilliant and accurate expose on what has happened to one of America’s great political parities, then send it to your friends be they Republicans, Independents or Democrats. For those unfamiliar with Robert Reich (see bio below), he is a strong liberal-left thinker. Regardless of his own political philosophy, I believe he is spot on in this analysis.

http://www.readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/7423-focus-the-rebirth-of-social-darwinism

Robert Reich is an American political economist, professor, author, and political commentator. He served in the administrations of Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, was Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1997, and is currently Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. He was formerly a professor at Harvard University‘s John F. Kennedy School of Government. (Taken from Wikipedia)

Jacob’s Dream and His Emergence into a Man of Faith – D’var Torah Vayetzei

02 Friday Dec 2011

Posted by in Divrei Torah, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life

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Jacob’s destiny was set from birth, but it would come at a price. As his mother Rebekah’s troubled twin pregnancy came to an end and the babies were born, Jacob emerged holding Esau’s heel suggesting a strong pre-natal desire to be born first and become, one day, the future leader of the tribe. In a clever commentary, Rashi (11th century, France) says that the scene reflects a primogeniture truth, that Jacob was actually conceived first, though he came out second, much as a pebble dropped into a tube first will come out second when the tube is inverted.

Despite being second-born, tradition asserts that Jacob’s spiritual potential merited his assuming first-born rights, and it also suggests that Rebecca knew that Esau, a hunter, lacked the requisite sensitivity, gentility, vision, and prophetic capacity to lead the tribe whereas Jacob possessed all those virtues.

Jacob’s dream event that opens this week’s portion (Genesis 28:10-22) signals the beginning of an important new stage in Jacob’s life. He had just fled in fear from an enraged Esau, was alone in the mountains, unsure of himself, and exhausted. He fell asleep and dreamed of ladders and angels.

This dream sequence is filled with powerful religious imagery, suggestion and mythic archetypes. The stones Jacob placed under his head are symbolic representing what Carl Jung called the Ego, the limited “I” of Jacob, a man still unaware (until this week’s portion) of the deeper implicate order linking the material and metaphysical worlds. The top of the ladder represents what Jung called the integrated Self which unifies the conscious and unconscious into a non-dualistic cosmos.

When Jacob went to sleep using those stones as a kind of pillow, we suspect that something unusual is about to happen, that he is on the cusp of new self-consciousness. Lo and behold, he sees angels ascending (representing our human yearnings and outreach for something greater than ourselves) and angels descending (representing God’s outreach towards us).

When Jacob awoke from the dream and opened his eyes, he was astonished: “Surely God is in this place, va’anochi lo yadati, and I did not know it! … How awesome is this place! This is none other than the abode of God, and this is the gateway to heaven.” (28:16-17)

The beginning of any religious experience requires that we understand that we really know nothing at all. In Hebrew “I” is ani (anochi is a variant form), and when we rearrange the letters – aleph, nun, yod – we spell ain, which means “nothing”). In other words, the religious person must transform the “I” of our limited egos into a great Self in which we become part of the Oneness of God. Jacob’s sudden awareness reflects his newfound humility and is a prerequisite to the development of his faith.

Despite the spiritual potency of this experience, Jacob is still unaware (i.e. he lacks access to his full unconscious) and his faith is consequently conditional. He says, “If God remains with me, if God protects me…, and gives me bread to eat and clothing to wear, and if I return safe … – the Eternal shall be my God.” (28:20-21)

One of the consistent themes throughout the Genesis narratives is that in order for the Biblical figures to grow in faith they had to suffer trials. As a protected child of his mother, Jacob had been always pampered. However, in being forced to flee for his life from the brother he wronged, Jacob first became aware of the shadow (Jung’s term denoting that part of the unconscious mind consisting of repressed weaknesses, shortcomings, and instincts) in which he lived and which would envelop him for the next twenty years when at last he will meet a being divine and human at the river Jabbok and emerge with a new name, Yisrael – the one who struggles with God but prevails.

From Jacob’s birth to next week’s struggle we see his evolution from the unconsciousness of childhood to greater awareness, from being a self-centered trickster to the bearer of the covenant. As he progressed he learned that he must choose whether or not he will view the world through the eyes of faith.

For each of us, too, how we choose to see the world is consequential, and one of the most important consequences is whether or not we permit ourselves to stand at heaven’s gate.

Shabbat Shalom!

Mr. President: Commute Jonathan Pollard’s Sentence

01 Thursday Dec 2011

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History

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It is time for President Obama to commute Jonathan Pollard’s life sentence to time served for his guilty conviction of spying for Israel. Not only has Pollard now spent 26 years in prison, but he is in failing health. The latter would not be reason enough to commute the sentence if the punishment really did fit the crime, but the sentence from the beginning was grossly unfair.

Long ago it was revealed that Casper Weinberger, the then American Secretary of Defense, bore such animus against Pollard for his leaking American security documents to Israel that the Defense Secretary wanted to make a severe example of Pollard for his treachery. Weinberger had submitted a letter to the judge in Pollard’s case incorrectly alleging that information from Pollard had reached the former Soviet Union, and it was on this basis that the judge made the sentence so severe.

All this information was recently repeated to Vice President Joe Biden when he met with seven American Jewish leaders about the Pollard case. Included in this meeting was Malcolm Hoenlein of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, President of the Union for Reform Judaism, Dr. Simcha Katz of the Union of Orthodox Congregations, Rabbi Julie Schonfield of the Conservative Rabbinical Assembly, Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League, Rabbi Steve Gutow of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, and Michael Adler, a Miami community leader.

The meeting was called because two months ago the Vice President publicly condemned Pollard in the harshest terms provoking a strong response from many in the American Jewish community. The good news is that VP Biden welcomed a meeting at all. To date he is the highest-ranking American official ever to hold a meeting about Pollard, as was reported by Rebecca Anna Stoil, the Washington Representative of The Jerusalem Post. However, the Jewish leaders agreed to strict confidentiality as to what Biden’s response was or what he would advise the President to do in this case.

Pollard’s sentence is extreme relative to the sentences of other guilty foreign spies and agents. The average sentence in an American court given to others convicted of the same crime of spying for an ally as Pollard received has been two to four years. People convicted of treason also served far less time than Pollard. The Jewish leadership delegation cited to Biden the case of Hasan Abu-Jihad, who received only a 10-year sentence for spying for al-Qaida. American spies Aldrich Ames and Robert Hansen, convicted of spying for the former USSR, also were given less time. Other than Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, who were executed for passing top nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union in the early 50s (only Julius was likely guilty), no one has received a more harsh sentence than Jonathan Pollard – and again, his crime was passing secrets to an ally, Israel.

Reason and precedent dictate that Jonathan Pollard be released with a commutation of his sentence soon, perhaps before Hanukah. Humanitarian concerns also recommend his early release. Pollard has been hospitalized 4 times in the last year and suffers from a number of maladies including diabetes, nausea, dizziness, black-outs, problems with his gall bladder, kidneys, sinuses, eyes, and feet.

Finally, the Jewish leadership delegation told the Vice President that there is virtual consensus in the American Jewish community that President Obama should commute Pollard’s sentence to time served. The Union for Reform Judaism and the Central Conference of American Rabbis both passed resolutions years ago calling for justice and commutation. I agree wholeheartedly.

There is a political consideration here for the President as well. Though his record is solidly pro-Israel (only the Republican Jewish coalition refutes this based on anti-Obama political enmity), his releasing Pollard would be well-received in Israel and would undercut the same Republican Jewish Coalition that loves to distort and lie about Obama’s pro-Israel credentials.

Mr. President – commute Pollard’s sentence now!

64 Years Ago Today – Now What?

29 Tuesday Nov 2011

Posted by in Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History

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On November 29, 1947, 64 years ago today, the United Nations General Assembly adopted by 33 votes against 13 (with 10 abstentions) the “Palestine Partition Plan” advocating a two-state solution to the Arab-Jewish conflict, one Jewish and one Arab. The Jews were exuberant. The Arabs rejected the plan. Nearly six months later Ben-Gurion declared the establishment of the State of Israel: “…AND ON THE STRENGTH OF THE RESOLUTION OF THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY, (WE) HEREBY DECLARE THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A JEWISH STATE IN ERETZ-ISRAEL, TO BE KNOWN AS THE STATE OF ISRAEL.” The next day 7 Arab armies attacked Israel killing 6000 Jews, 1% of the entire Jewish population.

The borders proposed by the UN Partition Plan gave the Jewish minority 55% of the country, though half was the Negev desert, and in that portion 50% were Arabs.

Once the War of Independence began, Ben-Gurion promoted “Plan Dalet” as a strategic necessity and as a solution to two problems: it added 22% more land to the Jewish State and drove out much of the Arab population.

The myth that Arabs fled because their leaders told them that the Jews would rape and kill them is only partly true. The Haganah also drove out many thousands of Arabs. In the end only a small part of the Arab population remained in the new State of Israel and they became citizens. That number has now grown to 1.5 million inside the Green Line.

The question debated in Israel today concerns the meaning of a “Jewish State.” Israeli right wingers reject a two-state solution and claim that the “Jewish State” belongs exclusively to Jews regardless of the fact that thousands of Arabs have lived there for centuries. Most Israelis support a two-states for two-peoples solution, affirm the democratic character of the Jewish State and believe that all its citizens (Arabs included) have equal rights under the law according to the Declaration of Independence.

In a recent piece on this 64th anniversary since the UN Partition plan, the Israeli journalist and peace activist, Uri Avnery wrote:

“THE 1947 partition plan was an exceptionally intelligent document. Its details are obsolete now, but its basic idea is as relevant today as it was 64 years ago: two nations are living in this country [and] they cannot live together in one state without a continuous civil war. They can live together in two states. The two states must establish close ties between each other. Ben-Gurion was determined to prevent the founding of the Arab Palestinian state, and with the help of King Abdullah of Transjordan he succeeded. All his successors, with the possible exception of Yitzhak Rabin, have followed this line. We have paid – and are still paying – a heavy price for this folly. On the 64th anniversary of this historic event, we ought to go back to its basic principle: Israel and Palestine; Two States for Two Peoples.”

Such, of course, is more easily said than done. To shine a light on the essence of the problem I recommend three important articles:

[1] An opinion piece in Al Jazeera (September 30, 2011) by Sari Nusseibeh, Professor of Philosophy and President of Al-Quds University in Jerusalem entitled “Why Israel can’t be a ‘Jewish State’” – www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion (once on the site, type in the title of the article in “Search” and it will come up). Nusseibeh is considered a leading Palestinian “moderate” (after reading this peace one has to ask what “moderate” means!”

[2] A to Nusseibeh’s piece by his friend, Uri Avnery (noted above), an Israeli journalist, peace activist, former member of the Knesset, and leader of Gush Shalom, called “We are a People – A Response to Sari Nusseibeh” http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/week-s-end/we-are-a-people-a-response-to-sari-nusseibeh-1.389543. As a member of Israel’s left wing peace camp, Avnery is not hopeful for a settlement anytime soon not because of Israel’s right wing extremist government, but rather because the Palestinian identity and narrative has led them to regard Jews as nothing more than a religion and not a people.

[3] A blog by Bernard Avishai, an American-Israeli journalist and contributing Editor to the Harvard Business Review, taken from a much longer Atlantic article (November 23, 2011) (subscription only) called “The Return of ‘The Right.’” Avishai recasts the conflict based on the necessity for mutual understanding of the Israeli and Palestinian narratives – http://bernardavishai.blogspot.com/2011/11/return-of-right.html

As I ponder the complexity, intractability and politicization of this conflict I am reminded of what President John F. Kennedy said relative to the Soviet and American nuclear arms race – “This is not rocket science. These problems were made by human beings and they can be solved by human beings.”

Amen!

One more Reason the Israeli Reform Movement is so Important to Israel and World Jewry

28 Monday Nov 2011

Posted by in Israel/Zionism, Life Cycle, Stories

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The following letter was sent by Anat Hoffman, the Executive Director of the Israel Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism (IRAC), the social justice arm of the Israeli Reform movement.

Anat is one of my personal heroines. She is not only brilliant but indefatigable in striving to fulfill the mitzvah – Tzedek tzedek tirdof (Justice justice shall you pursue – Deuteronomy 16:20). The injustice and indecency of this Orthodox Rabbi and this regressive and inhumane practice that is growing in Israel should outrage any one with a conscience.

Dear Friends of IRAC,

Rosie, a teacher who lives in a small town in the Negev desert, is a single mother who lost her father at the beginning of the year. The family decided to bury him in the nearby town of Ofakim. Rosie spent the night writing a eulogy for her father that she was going to read at the funeral

When they arrived at the cemetery there was a mechitza, a barrier, separating her from her brother and all the other men attending the funeral. When her turn came to speak, the officiating rabbi asked her brother to read the eulogy instead because he said “In our tradition women are not allowed to speak at funerals.” Rosie’s brother refused, saying that she should be the one to read it, since this is what their father wanted but the rabbi refused and suggested to read the eulogy himself. Rosie protested and cried from behind the partition “Are you going to say ‘My beloved father’?”

Rosie did not keep quiet and told her story at a Knesset conference on segregation this month. She wept sharing her pain and frustration at not being able to say goodbye to her father and at having her own words, written during one of the hardest moments of her life, taken away from her. Though missing a day of work was a financial burden for her, she came to testify because she never wants women to be humiliated like this again. With the help if IRAC’s lawyers she is suing the chevre kadisha, burial society, of Ofakim to show that this practice must stop immediately. This past Thursday Rosie went on the most popular radio show in Israel to talk about her upcoming court case. The broadcaster asked her to read her eulogy on air. Millions of Israelis got to hear her words and her voice.

Segregation and exclusion of women has spread like wildfire to many aspects of public life; post offices, buses, and supermarkets and now it has even reached the arena of public death. We at IRAC have been like firefighters, vigilantly putting out fires wherever they pop up. Unfortunately, Rosie’s story is not an isolated one. We have received complaints about segregation in cemeteries from Netanya, Petach Tikva, Tiberias, Yavne, and Jerusalem. Some of these women are not even allowed next to the gravesites of their loved ones because some rabbis see it as inappropriate. IRAC is collecting stories from other women so we can deal with this issue on a national scale. Segregation at funerals affects all Israelis and they are not willing to stand it anymore.

These new fires will not stop us. My helmet is on and my water hose is ready.

L’shalom,

Anat Hoffman

 

 

 

“In the Garden of Beasts” by Erik Larson – A Book Recommendation

27 Sunday Nov 2011

Posted by in Book Recommendations, Jewish History

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This book was a great read as it has all the elements necessary for an exciting suspense novel. The story covers the first year of service (1933-1934) of the newly arrived American Ambassador to Germany, William E. Dodd, and is told from his and his family’s perspective. We witness Hitler’s solidification of power, the Nazi subjugation of Germany, the obsessive anti-Semitism of the 3rd Reich, the strained relationship between Ambassador Dodd and the German government, the suspicion, hatred and jealousies among Nazi’s top officials, and the class-based dislike and distrust of Dodd by key American Foreign Service officials.

We are privy also to the numerous romantic affairs of Dodd’s beautiful, flirtatious and naive 24-year old daughter, Martha, as she cavorts with top Nazi and Gestapo officials, French diplomats, Soviet agents, and famous literary figures. A close Hitler intimate, Ernst “Putzi” Hanfstaengl, tried to make a romantic match between Martha and Hitler himself. Reflecting on Martha’s unorthodox behavior, one American Embassy staffer snapped that Dodd’s residence wasn’t just the Ambassador’s house; it was a “house of ill repute.”

Unless one understood that this book was actual history painstakingly researched by Erik Larson (based in part on Dodd’s and Martha’s diaries) one would have to assume that this was a work of fiction. However, the book is history.

William E. Dodd was a late choice by FDR to represent the United States in Germany after many others refused the position. At the age of 64 Dodd needed a change from the hum-drum of academic affairs and wanted some position that would enable him to finish his 3 volume history of the American South before he died (he did not complete it). He thought that going to Belgium or the Netherlands as the US Ambassador would give him time to do so. Since no one FDR wanted for Berlin was willing to serve there, the job fell to Dodd.

Dodd was a mild-mannered professor of history at the University of Chicago and a close friend of former President Woodrow Wilson. He prided himself on being a Jeffersonian democrat. He was principled, rational, modest, and decent. Unlike his Foreign Service colleagues, he was not wealthy, and he eschewed luxurious living to their chagrin.

Dodd had spent his student years studying in Leipzig, was a German speaker, and loved pre-Nazi Germany. It did not take long for him to see the Nazi menace for what it really was. We see his growing revulsion to the Nazi regime, to Hitler and everyone around him. In contrast, the politically naïve and bon vivant Martha was easily seduced by the new Germany, its charm and the people she met, and she refused to accept first-hand testimony of Nazi tyranny and brutality by her literary friends until personal experience disillusioned her too.

Though Dodd himself held anti-Semitic views like many of his era, he was deeply distressed by the Nazi persecution of Jews and advocated that FDR publicly condemn it. His State Department bosses, however, who were bonafide anti-Semites, advised FDR against speaking out arguing that offending Germany would cause it to renege on its payment of debt to the United States.

Though the book does not deal at all with the moral questions of how an entire nation could become passive in the face of tyranny and how otherwise decent Germans could become partners in the Nazi evil, it offers a unique window into the heart of the “beast.” The book’s title is taken from the name of a park in an exclusive neighborhood of Berlin called Tiergarten (lit. “animal garden” or “garden of the beasts,” which recalled a time when the area was a hunting preserve for royalty).

The book would make a great feature film, and I would not be surprised if it is already optioned.

For more, see this review in The Seattle Times (May 7, 2011) http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/books/2014957681_br08beasts.html.

Into My Children’s Cups – A Poem for Parashat Toldot

25 Friday Nov 2011

Posted by in Divrei Torah, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Poetry

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Isaac is the most misunderstood and underappreciated Patriarch. So often he is cast by commentators as feeble-minded and weak, a passive victim to his father’s zealotry, manipulated by his mother Sarah and his wife Rebecca, taken as the fool by his son Jacob, passed off as a simpleton and follower minus the revolutionary fervor of Abraham and the dream visions of Jacob.

I believe this view of him is unfortunate and wrong. Indeed, without Isaac Abraham would have passed into oblivion because Isaac re-dug his father’s wells (Genesis 26:18+), an act of profound yearning and faith. After he did so God gave this blessing: Al tira, ki it’cha Anochi u-vei-rach’ti-cha v’hir’bei-ti et zar’a-cha ba-a-vur Avraham av’di – “Fear not, for I am with you, and I will bless you and increase your offspring for the sake of My servant Abraham.” (Genesis 26:24)

Like his father Abraham and his son Jacob, Isaac recognized the significance of his Divine-human encounter. The Midrash and mystical traditions understand his re-digging his father’s wells as Isaac’s own spiritual search for God.

The well, with its hidden waters, is a symbol of soul-light covered over by physicality (i.e. klipot), and Isaac’s “digging” and seeking that Ineffable light became the central organizing motif of his adult life and a sign of his spiritual maturity.

Though Isaac broke no new ground, by re-digging Abraham’s wells the son embodies spiritual continuity and the virtue of perseverance, each a core necessity for the perpetuation of the Jewish people and tradition.

Not all of us are revolutionaries digging new wells and forging new spiritual paths, or visionaries intuiting God’s presence and calling us to God, but our role as re-diggers of our forebears’ wells needs always to be appreciated as essential to life itself and the sustenance and future of Judaism and the Jewish people.

The following is my poetic tribute to Isaac, one of my favorite figures in all of Torah, because he was a pre-eminent “digger” of faith.

I am Isaac. / Tradition doesn’t esteem me / as my father and son. / To our people’s cynics / I’m a passive place holder, / set between two visionaries / one hearing God’s voice, / the other communing with angels.

To them I’m the do-nothing / dull-witted middle-man, / neither here nor there, / coerced into submission by a father, / tricked by a son and abandoned by God, / who willed me slain / to test my father’s faith, / and thus become / history’s most misunderstood near-victim.

My father was driven by voices, / left home on a promise / and journeyed to a Place he’d never seen, / a low-lying mountain shielded round about by a cloud / beneath heavenly fire.

My son dreamed of angels / ascending ladder rungs / from land and form / into spirit and spheres.

Tradition diminishes me / insinuating that I merely built a worldly fortune / on my father’s wealth.

Ancestors all / I’m far more than this / for you see / the wellsprings I’ve uncovered / are more than you know / greater that waters deep, calm, cool, and tranquil / their streams flow to the Source of souls.

I dug anew these, my father’s wells / the same the Philistines / with stopped-up hearts / and clogged souls / filled in when he died.

I and my servants dug and dug / our thirst unquenchable / passions unleashing / hearts expecting / souls soaring / on angels’ wings.

And after all our digging / we found the well and the spring / flowing in earthly and heavenly wetness.

The inflowing fountain never dries up. / The well is replenished / continually / and whoever drinks from its waters / merges through supernal faith.

The wells I have dug / are the same as my father’s. / That is our gift to you!

All I yearn for / is to pour the waters into your cups / that you carry on and dig anew / and pour out the same / into your own children’s cups.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Being Grateful While Living in Both “Light” and “Shadow”

23 Wednesday Nov 2011

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Ethics, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Life Cycle, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Quote of the Day

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Tennessee Williams said, “You know we live in light and shadow. That’s what we live in – a world of light and shadow; and it’s confusing.” (Orpheus Descending)

None of our lives is simple, but along comes Thanksgiving each year and the expectation is for us to emphasize that for which we are thankful regardless of how we might feel.

For some of us, gratitude comes easily, and for others feeling grateful is a significant challenge. I believe that nurturing gratitude is one of the most effective means to dispel the “shadow.” For some, pharmaceutical help is indicated, and I urge it if that is your situation. For most of us, we need a way to help ourselves get out into “light.”

I have a suggested exercise that may help. If each of us were to take out a blank sheet of paper and list on one side all the good things in our lives and all the negatives on the other, which side would be longer? Spare nothing in compiling your lists. On the positive side, start with “I am alive!” even if you are sick or in pain. Include all that you have – home, food, medical care, family, friends, the ability to see, hear, walk, use the bathroom, to help others. Take your time and make the list as detailed as you can.

Then list all the negatives. Include every ache and pain, every loss from which you have not been able to heal, the holes in your heart, your frustrations and aggravations, your unmet dreams, your overly thin-skin, your inability to control rage, envy, jealousy, resentment, your feeling victimized, etc.

Now, given the two lists, which one takes most of your time, vitality and attention?

For me, thankfully, the side in “light” is so much longer than the side in “shadow,” yet there are times that I spend proportionately too much time in “shadow.” Not good for me or for those around me, and I know it.

On Yom Kippur, I made a commitment that I would emphasize the “light” of my life and not the “shadow.” The good news for me is that I feel and express gratitude easily despite my spending more time in “shadow” than is good for me.

Yet, I wake up each morning usually feeling refreshed, and excited about the morning sun, the new day, new opportunities to learn, think and create, to be with the people I love and enjoy, and to do meaningful work in my synagogue and friendship communities.

If you too often find yourself in “shadow”, perhaps these quotations on the theme of gratitude can help make this Thanksgiving Day happier and every day more meaningful.

“Hodu l’Adonai ki tov, ki l’olam chasdo” (“Give thanks to God, for Adonai is good…God’s steadfast love is eternal.” –  Psalm 136 (9th century, B.C.E.)

“When you arise in the morning give thanks for the morning light, for your life and strength. Give thanks for your food and the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies in yourself.” – Native American Prayer, Tecumseh Tribe

“How strange we are in the world, and how presumptuous our doings! Only one response can maintain us: gratefulness for witnessing the wonder, for the gift of our unearned right to serve, to adore, and to fulfill. It is gratefulness which makes the soul great.” – Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972)

“Ingratitude to a human being is ingratitude to God.” – Rabbi Samuel Hanagid (993-1056 CE)

“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.” – William Arthur Ward, American scholar, author, pastor and teacher (1921-1997)

“Gratitude, not understanding, is the secret to joy and equanimity.” – Anne Lamott, writer (b. 1954)

“Thank everyone who calls out your faults, your anger, your impatience, your egotism; do this consciously, voluntarily.” – Jean Toomer, poet and novelist (1894-1967)

“We should write an elegy for every day that has slipped through our lives unnoticed and unappreciated. Better still, we should write a song of thanksgiving for all the days that remain.” – Sarah Ban Breathnach, author (b 1948)

“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.” – Cicero, Roman philosopher (106 BC – 43 BC)

“If the only prayer you say in your life is ‘Thank you,’ that would suffice.” – Meister Eckhart, German theologian, philosopher (1260-1328)

“I can no other answer make but thanks, and thanks, and thanks, and ever thanks.” – William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

 

“Jewish Stories from Heaven and Earth: Inspiring Tales to Nourish the Heart and Soul” edited by Rabbi Dov Peretz Elkins – A Book Recommendation

22 Tuesday Nov 2011

Posted by in Book Recommendations, Stories

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Rabbi Dov Peretz Elkins’ Jewish Stories from Heaven and Earth: Inspiring Tales to Nourish the Heart and Soul does precisely that – nourish the heart and soul, and I recommend it highly to Jews, people of all faith traditions, atheists and agnostics, rebels and anyone who cherishes the human spirit. It is a collection of stories that Dov has collected in his journeys around the world over the last two decades. This, from his introduction, describes well the content and impact of this special volume:

“The tales told in this book emerge out of the Jewish tradition, but can undoubtedly be read and enjoyed by people of all faiths. They are Jewish, but also very human stories, universal in content and theme…

These…are not simply stories, not mere legends spun out of the mysterious minds of a talented muse. Rather, they are tales of courage, devotion, and passion: narratives of commitment to education, perseverance, piety and familial love, community solidarity, heroic behavior, and extraordinary achievement. They come from the muse of the famous, and the not so famous [Israeli Prime Ministers, rabbis, scholars, teachers, physicians, survivors, journalists, the elderly and the young]…

One cannot come away from reading these amazing chronicles of life at its heights and depths without experiencing a surge of pride in our Jewish heritage.

In these tales are the best and the worst of God’s creations: people who are gentle, kind, compassionate, audacious, and heroic; and others who have tried to extinguish from the planet that glowing ember of spirituality called the Jewish People. You will be lifted to the highest mountaintop and plunged into the darkest abyss in the course of reading about the lives of people who are simply trying to eke out a living…

Taken together, these tales exemplify what it means to be the Jewish People, whose history is as old as Babylon and as new as Tel Aviv…”

Rabbi Dov Peretz Elkins is a lecturer, educator and author. Everything he publishes is worthwhile reading, and this is one of them. It is published by Jewish Lights Publishing, (www.jewishlights.com), 2010. I hope you will include it in your stack of books to be read! I saw it about a year ago, bought it and finally got around to reading it. I am glad I did. So will you!

 

 

 

Israel at its Best!!!!!

21 Monday Nov 2011

Posted by in Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism

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This past week, as President of the regional board of the Association of Reform Zionists of America (ARZA) along with our ARZA Regional Director Jerry Krautman, we welcomed Alex Cicelsky from Israel who is on a national speaking tour sponsored by ARZA. That hour was so exciting and inspiring that I wanted to tell you about Alex and the ground-breaking environmental work being done on Kibbutz Lotan.

Alex is a senior staff member and founder of the “Center for Creative Ecology” (CfCE) and a founder of Kibbutz Lotan, one of two Reform Kibbutzim in the Arava about 60 miles north of the southern city of Eilat. The Kibbutz was founded in 1983, has 200 members with 60 children and is a cross-generational community. The Kibbutz has become a nationally and internationally recognized center for developing cutting-edge environmental technologies and projects.

Originally from New York State, Alex made aliyah in 1982. He studied international agriculture at Cornel University’s School of Agriculture and is an expert in soil and water sciences, desert architecture, and green technologies. He is engaged actively with the Global Ecovillage Network of which Kibbutz Lotan is a member.

Kibbutz Lotan is a remarkable example of what can be done in Israel when smart, motivated, principled, courageous, and inspired people (backed by the Reform movement) join together in common cause. The Kibbutz grows dates, has a dairy of 250 cows and is developing a goat dairy. Most significantly, it is a center for eco-tourism, has a nature and bird reserve which offers rest and food for millions of annually migrating birds, and is constructing its own wetland in the middle of the desert for treating the community’s waste water. Lotan has developed numerous desert energy technologies, designed green architecture for the severe desert climate, water management systems, and desert agriculture. It is a center, as well, for environmental education and peace-building in association with “Friends of the Earth,” drawing together Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian youth in a regional network of natural builders and organic gardeners that include the Yesh Meayin Eco-Education Farm and the Marda Palestine Permaculture Education Center.

The Kibbutz built a youth center comprised of 10 desert dormitory structures (25 more units are planned at $25K/unit) that welcomed last summer 600 National Federation of Temple Youth (NFTY – the American Reform youth movement). Any American university student can earn 16 course credits for a semester of living and working at Lotan, and post-university green apprenticeships are available. Lotan has also developed materials on how to make “green” businesses anywhere in the world.

Lotan is internationally recognized as a leading ecological center and has received monetary support from the European Union (EU) for its water recycling systems, funds from the Jewish National Fund (JNF) for its “Bird Hide” structure built from recycled waste and the nature reserve giving food, shelter and water to migrating birds) and is recognized for its programs to build bridges between Arabs and Jews. For example, it led the building of the Bustan-Medwed Wadi El Naam Health Clinic that serviced the Bedouins living in unrecognized villages that lacked health care.

Alex explained that Kibbutz Lotan’s mission is to fulfill Judaism’s core values of “tilling and protecting” the earth citing the famous Midrash from Kohelet Rabba 7:28: “Upon presenting the wonder of creation to Adam, God said: ‘See my works, how fine and excellent they are! Now all that I created, for you I created. Think upon this, and do not corrupt and desolate my world; for if you corrupt it, there is no one to set it right after you.’”

I was deeply impressed, inspired and proud of what Alex and Kibbutz Lotan have created. It is but one example of how Israel’s Reform movement is breaking new ground and fulfilling the promise of the Jewish State and the Jewish people to be an or lagoyim, a light unto the nations.

For more information on Kibbutz Lotan and Alex’s work, you can go to Lotan’s website, www.kibbutzlotan.com, Facebook (lotan.kibbutz and lotan.ga), and Youtube (kibbutzlotan). If you wish to assist the Kibbutz, you can send contributions to ARZA (Association of Reform Zionists of America) and direct the gift to Kibbutz Lotan at ARZA, 633 Third Avenue, 7th Floor, New York, NY 10017 (212-650-4280).