Rabbi Arthur Waskow 6/30/2004

Dear folks,

I've had some remarkable speak-out experiences recently. Two of them give me a strong sense of new directions in our spiritual lives:

The 14th Street Jewish "Y" / Educational Alliance in Lower Manhattan invited three practitioners of avant-garde spirituality to have a conversation with each other and those 200+ folks who gathered:

The three were —

The Rev. Billy Talen of the Church of Stop Shopping, who leads groups of people into huge walmarts to startle shoppers and raise consciousness with chants about sweatshop wages, shattered small businesses, and the like, and who once a week leads people to Ground Zero in Manhattan, there to chant, again and again, the First Amendment to the US Constitution. (Look it up; it's a trip!)

Larry Harvey, who founded Burning Man (an annual gathering of about 35,000 people in the Mohave Desert where they create a sharing, caring, singing tent city for one week and first build, then burn a giant structure before they clean up and disperse).

And me, of and for The Shalom Center.

I started by describing the end-of-Sukkot (the Jewish harvest festival) a few years ago when we brought 300 or so Jews who lived along the Hudson River together at its banks to do a very ancient ceremony with a few contemporary twists.

We beat willow branches on the earth beside the river, we danced seven dances with the Torah scroll, we danced with seven different banners of different colors representing the Seven Days of Creation, and we chanted seven ancient prayers for the earth, "Save us!! from drought, locusts, famine, earthquakes."

And we added one new aspect: We prayed also to be saved from the PCBs that General Electric has poured into the Hudson and refuses to clean up. We signed petitions.

To this uniquely Jewish ceremony there came folks who were not Jewish. A dozen Catholic nuns, who lived in convents on the river banks. An elder of the Iriquois, who saw a newspaper announcement that we were praying and acting to save the Hudson, and thought he should come. And finally, Pete Seeger, an outside-the-box spiritual leader of at least two generations of Americans.

Our celebration was not just Jewish, not non-Jewish; it was trans-Jewish. It was not just spiritual, not just political; it was what Rabbi Heschel meant when he said his legs were praying in a civil-rights march, what he meant when he - a deep and lyrical pray-er - said that prayer is useless unless it is subversive.

I asked whether the other speakers thought they were creating new forms of religion. Rev. Billy said he was allergic to the word; he grew up in a VERY strict Lutheran household, so narrow that for him Madison Wisconsin was an opening to Freedom was Paris and Berkeley and Timbuktu all in one.

I pointed out that in times of profound upheaval like the Roman conquest of the whole Mediterranean basin, 2000 years ago old forms wither and new religions appear. Mr. Burning Man cocked his head and thought.

"Maybeeeee so. We are a myth, a community, a Spirit. Maybeee so."

What would that mean? --- We had a great conversation. We sat at a make-believe bar in a refurbished old shul on the Lower East Side just a few blocks from Houston Street where my grandfather lived and worked as a garment-maker, a schneider, a tailor. We drank wine and beer, we laughed, we told our stories. People laughed, hushed, roared along with us.

I felt free. Nobody nagging me, noodjing me, "What about Israel and the suicide bombers, what about Leviticus 18, what about intermarriage?" Important questions, but for a moment set aside for a time of playful, creative exploration. Scouting toward a new land, full of promise. None of us were giants, none of us grasshoppers. All of us dancing with the Spirit.

And then a few nights later, a Conservative synagogue near Atlantic City. Many of its members people who had retired to live near the Shore, and could afford it. A solemn topic, no beer or wine for this one: How might/should/could/would Jews vote in the 2004 election?

I talked about Pharaoh. About unaccountable, unchecked power. About power as a useful tool, but terrifying when its holder gets addicted. "Absolute power corrupts absolutely." About the Pharaoh whose own hand-picked advisers warn him he is destroying his own Egypt but he cant turn back. He is addicted. He began by hardening his own heart, but now he is addicted and Reality is hardening his heart.

I talked about how arrogance, addiction to power, breeds not only unethical but stupid action. The arrogant pay no attention to what is really happening. They insist on getting their own way, going their own way:

"You say I am destroying my own country, the earth we ourselves live from, the water we ourselves drink, the air we ourselves breathe?? Alienating our own friends? Breeding and training those who will terrorize us?

"So what? I can't stop."

I teach people to hear the "YHWH" name of Gid as a Breathing, "Yyyyhhhhwwwwhhhh," and I pause to catch my breath.

First question: "You may be right about all that, but theres only one thing I care about: Israel. Bush is pro-Israel. We should reward him."

I answer calmly, warmly. I understand the fear, I have compassion for all who feel that fear. What is the first response of those who were "strangers in Egypt," whose beloveds were murdered in the Holocaust? Super-tough determination never again to be powerless, and to prevent that weakness, super-tough determination to grasp as much power as possible. And use it. Get addicted to it.

Thats why the Torah has to teach over and over and over and over, "Love the stranger, the foreigner, the pariah, the victim — because you were strangers, foreigners, pariahs, victims in Egypt."

When my kids were growing up and I had to repeat myself again and again about something, it was precisely because they were not doing what I taught them.

Just so the Torah.

This is the most repeated teaching, the one about strangers. Its hard to learn, when you have suffered. But the wisdom of the Torah is that our first impulse after suffering , to grab and use all possible force and power, MORE, MORE — is not a good idea.

So I have compassion for those who nowadays are filled with fear and rage about how we have been victimized in the past. But as Yitzchak Rabin kept saying, we are victims no more. We have power; we must learn to use it responsibly. Not addictively.

All this I said. Many at the synagogue nodded, they followed what I was saying, they listened as I said that it isnt true that there are "no Palestinians to talk with," that important Palestinian leaders had worked with important Israeli leaders to plan the Geneva Initiative. A sensible, workable plan for peace. Some nodded.

The discussion continued. A good wrestle, thoughtful and respectful and not angry. When the very first questioner again raised "Israel," I finally said, "Look, in this election, Kerry has the same position on Israel that Bush does. Im not trying to fool you: I wish he didnt. But since he does, if this is the most important issue to you, on this one its a toss-up.

"So you might as well look at all the other questions. Was the invasion of Iraq a good idea? What about health care? womens rights? clean air and water? money for schools? huge tax breaks for the super-rich?"

This evening was not a carefree dance, like the one on the Lower East Side. But it wasn't harsh or angry. I think it mattered, that I was coming from so clearly a spiritual Jewish place.

From both those evenings, I take new strength and new hope for Americans and America, for Jews and Christians and Muslims and Seekers.

I ended the evening as I always do, by asking us to honor the One Great Name in which appear the many names of all our teachers, all our students, all our selves all those names that are part of the One Great Name.

May we all from those many names and that One Name find blessing.

Tomorrow, July 1, Phyllis and I go off for a month to meet Israelis and Palestinians. May we be blessed to take as many risks as call us and find as much safety as we need.

Amen, ahmeyn, ahmin

Shalom, salaam, peace — Arthur