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Oprah to Gloria Steinem to Reb Arthur OR Arthur to Gloria to Oprah

Submitted by Editor on

Perhaps you’ve heard about it, but did you see it with your own eyes? Gloria Steinem was on Oprah recently. Oprah asked her to describe a transformative moment in her life. Gloria Steinem shared a story from the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago:

"I was giving out farm worker's literature and I thought, 'Why am I doing this?' And Arthur Waskow, a wonderful man, comes up to me and says [here she grasps Oprah's hand], 'It's important, what you are doing.  Everything is important!'  And I've never forgotten that."

Beyond Trauma: Erotic & Egalitarian

Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on

 How does a community, a culture, move beyond trauma?  Some lessons from the Jewish past: Today (August 3) is the fifteenth day of the lunar month of Av or Ramadan – the day of the full moon. It comes six days after the Jewish day of mourning for the destruction of the Holy Temples in Jerusalem. During the period of the Second Temple, from about  600 BCE to 75 CE, that day was a day of celebration. Young women went into the fields in white dresses, dancing and choosing husbands for themselves.

They exchanged dresses with each other so that a woman whose family was poor might wear a fancy and expensive dress, while the daughter of the High Priest might wear a poor woman’s dress. Thus the men they courted could not respond to them on the basis of their wealth, but only by their vivacity in dance and conversation.

Vivacity: the root of the word is “life.”  Seeking a sexual and emotional and spiritual partner, the key is vivacity: fullness of life.

Why am I writing all this? Because it seems to me this day was an attempt to renew life after the sorrow of Destruction.  And I think in Modernity we have lost – or been robbed -- of both deep sorrow and full joy. 

When Ramadan and Av Unite

Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on

Tonight (July 19, 2012), as the New Moon glimmers, the Jewish and Muslim communities both enter a solemn month, known to one as Ramadan and the other as Av.

In both, fasting takes on great importance as a way of focusing spiritual energy.   

During the whole month of Ramadan, Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset. As they do, they turn their attention from material gain and  physical pleasures to the call of God to serve the poor, to work for justice, to meditate on what is deep joy rather than immediate pleasure.

Since Ramadan is a lunar month and the Muslim calendar is a purely lunar calendar, Ramadan moves in a majestic march through the solar year, as the years unfold — sometimes in Spring or Summer or Autumn or Winter.  This year, in the Northern Hemisphere it comes in a scorching mid-summer when the time between sunrise and sunset is longest. So refraining from food and especially from water through the long hot daylight is especially difficult this year. The month can remind us all to connect with compassion not only with the Muslims in our lives but also with the poor who live in hunger through all the year.

 Jews enter the month of Av with an eye toward its ninth day, Tisha B’Av, a day of lament for the destruction of the ancient Temples in Jerusalem. On that day, Jews fast for 24 hours, from sunset to sunset of the next day. This year the ninth day of Av falls on Shabbat; so the fast and lamentation are postponed to begin after Shabbat on Saturday night, July 28, leading  into Sunday, July 29.

In our generation, the lament can broaden from ancient Temples:  We can all lament the growing dangers to the Earth — which is the Holy Temple of all peoples

Why is Colorado Burning?

Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on

The last few days of July will bring together times and events that share grief and mourning for the destruction of Holy Temples.

One is the Jewish holy day called Tisha B’Av that laments the destruction (twice) of the ancient Holy Temples in Jerusalem.

The other is a protest action in Washington DC called “Stop the Frack Attack.” The Washington action will lament and resist the destruction of Earth, the universal Temple of all Humanity and all life-forms on this planet. Now.

About the title of this piece – “WHY is Colorado burning?”

We know why the ancient Temples burned: At the obvious and material level, they were burned by Imperial armies bent on conquest – one by the Babylonian Empire, one by the Roman Empire. At a deeper level, the Rabbis taught that spiritual failings within the Jewish community itself -- idolatry and senseless hatred -- brought on the disasters.

As with many events in the world where Earth and human earthlings intertwine, it is hard to pin a specific disaster on a specific human action. But when Colorado, and Texas, and Russia, and central Africa, and Australia all experience unprecedented droughts and fires in a few years’ span, and when those burnings (and also unprecedented floods in Pakistan and Vermont) fit perfectly into the scientists’ predictions of the effects of global scorching– then we would be wise to connect the dots.

Burning fossil fuel burns our planet. Today the role of Imperial Babylon and Imperial Rome is played by Big Oil, Big Coal, Big Gas. And for us too, internal spiritual failings contribute to their power  -- greed, idolatry of the Automobile and other destructive luxuries,  contempt for the non-human life-forms of our planet, cynicism and sloth in the face of the Imperial Corporation.

This month, the connection between Tisha B’Av and Stop the Frack Attack in both dates and deep meaning  (accidental? Providential?) is calling us to enrich the connection even more, through prayerful action.

From Thursday, July 26, through Saturday, July 28, thousands of people will gather in Washington DC, for various aspects of “Stop the Frack Attack.” Click here for full information.

After many local, state, and regional actions against fracking, this will be the first national action. The Shalom Center is one of many co-sponsors.

Highlights: Thursday, Lobbying; Friday: Training in various forms of effective social action, followed by a strategy discussion and “town meeting”; Saturday, at US Capitol: multireligious service followed by rally and then march to Big Gas corporate HQ.

I want to call special attention to the multireligious service that will be held at the Capitol at 1:30 Saturday afternoon. Tisha B’Av this year begins that very night  –  from Saturday night into Sunday, July 29.

The service at the Capitol will draw on and go beyond Tisha B’Av. In Jewish tradition, besides lamenting  the destruction,, the day also bespeaks hope that from this disaster will emerge the great transformative coming of the days of peace and justice.

The “Stop the Frack Attack” multireligious service on July 28 is being organized by The Shalom Center and Interfaith Moral Action on Climate. It will lament the danger we face today of destruction of the Holy Temple of the Earth itself.

Among religious leaders taking part in the service will be Rev. Bob Edgar, former head of the National Council of Churches, now head of Common Cause; Rev. Richard Cizik,  co-founder of the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good. Others have been invited from the Jewish, Catholic,  Muslim, and Buddhist communities.

What is fracking, and why is it a danger?

“Hydro-fracturing” (hence “fracking”)  is the process of forcing tons of chemicalized water under very high pressure

ACTION to rebuke anti-Jewish threats in Catholic circles, and support Catholic nuns

Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on

Dear friends, 

 This is a letter about ACTION.  Action supporting nuns and other women who are under attack from the Catholic hierarchy, and ACTION to rebuke any recurrence of anti-Semitic threats from Catholics.

 Two weeks ago, I wrote you a Shalom Report letter criticizing the Catholic hierarchy’s attacks on the religious freedom of Catholic nuns and American women.

 That letter sparked a lot of excitement and debate, plus one response that was hostile and threatening. It came from Bill Donohue, head of the Catholic League, threatening me or other Jews who might dare criticize the Catholic hierarchy.

[For additional  information on the national pro-and-con discussion that arose from the original article, including comments responding to those threats by Mayor Koch, R. David Saperstein, and Gloria Steinem, please click here. — AW]

Mr. Donohue justified his threat  by "quoting"  former Mayor Ed Koch.  But  Mayor Koch himself came forward to say that Mr. Donohue had utterly misstated  what Koch had said.

 For the sake of Heaven, for the dignity of the Church itself, and for the sake of comity in American society, all members of the Catholic Church need to know that this kind of rhetoric will not be tolerated by its official leaders.

 So I think the time has come for firm and gentle action. I want to ask you to join me in sending a firm and gentle letter to Archbishop Dolan of New York

I ask you to write Timothy Cardinal  Dolan, Archbishop of New York, through Joseph Zwilling, Director of Communications for the Archbishop, by emailing him at  communications@archny.org

 I ask you to remind him that “No religion is an island,“ as Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel taught; to urge him

Oprah, Gloria Steinem, & Reb Arthur

Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on

Dear friends,  A few weeks ago, within three minutes I received three Emails from three different people on the same subject.

 They all reported that they had just watched Oprah Winfrey’s interview of Gloria Steinem. At the very end, Oprah had asked Steinem what moment of transformation she recalled in her life.

 Ms. Steinem responded:

 The things I remember that changed my life are really very small.
I was in the middle of the 1968 Convention when I just moved here.
I'd gone to this disastrous Democratic Convention.  
There was violence everywhere.  There was a police riot.  
I was distributing farm worker literature and I thought, "This is hopeless. Why am I doing this--(giving out this literature).  
And Arthur Waskow (I hope he's watching this...I haven't seen him since),
a wonderful man, came up to me and he said, "It's important.  Do it. Do it.
It's important. Everything we do is important."  and I've never forgotten that.

  I WAS ASTONISHED TO get these letters. My thought was, “You never know, you never know!”

 That is, you never know what act of kindness, of decency, of hope, of perseverance might help to heal a person or the world. 

 I called a friend of mine whom I know is friends with Ms. Steinem. I asked her to call and give her my number; that I would very much like to be directly in touch with her.

 Fifteen minutes later she called me, and we arranged what became a two-hour conversation at her home in New York.

 A delicious conversation.  I was moved, was educated, was enchanted.

 Remember --  You never know! Give your self over to a moment, and you might transform your self. Or someone else. Or the world.

 Shalom, salaam; healing, wholeness –--   Arthur

If the Biblical Ruth came to America Today --

Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on

"Ruth,"  "Boaz," & Our Money

The Biblical tale of "Ruth" rises in our awareness this week because we are soon to celebrate her special holy-day, Shavuot.


Shavuot has many faces. For the Bible, it was the moment to celebrate the success of the spring wheat harvest. For the ancient Rabbis, it was the anniversary of Torah's revelation on Mount Sinai.

And the Rabbis left as legacy to us the annual reading of the Book of Ruth, an earthy tale of farming, outcasts, and communal sharing;

In the biblical story, Ruth was a penniless immigrant from a despised pariah people. Yet she was welcomed onto the fields of Boaz, where she gleaned what the regular harvesters had left behind. Boaz made sure that even this despised foreigner had a decent job at decent pay. He forbade his male employees from harassing her. When she went one night to the barn where the barley crop was being threshed, he spent the night with her — and decided to marry her.

But — if Ruth came to America today, what would happen?

Would she be admitted at the border?

Or would she be detained for months

Bending history's arc: the Spirit breathes new life into marriage

Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on

  • "The arc of history bends slowly, but it bends toward justice" -- IF we bend it:

  • A rush of joy that President Obama has stepped across the line into full support of equality in marriage.
  • In 2000, New Menorah, the print magazine I then edited, published a special issue with articles from many perspectives, all affirming the legitimacy of Jewish same-sex marriage (and civil same-sex marriage) in this epoch of Judaism. (New Menorah had urged full equality for gay men and lesbians in Jewish and general life since 1985, but this was a deliberate attempt to push for change in the broader Jewish community.)

Imposing "sharia" -- Roman Catholic version

Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on

The future of Islam in America

During the last few weeks (February 2012), we have seen an outrageous attempt to impose
sharia law on the US government and the American public.

 NOT Muslim sharia;  it is Roman Catholic “sharia” about contraception that the US Conference of Catholic Bishops has been trying to impose on Americans of all faiths and beliefs who happen to work at a Catholic-sponsored hospital or university.

Have Muslims been campaigning to impose sharia law on US courts? NO! – Of the many faces of Islam in America, the face of the future –-- open in wonder and questioning –- is the one our society could be, should be, encouraging -- not denouncing and demeaning. Click the photo above to expand it, and then look deeply into that face.:

Yet the same voices –--  Fox News, various candidates for President – that have bitterly attacked non-existent attempts by American Muslims to impose sharia on the public have not criticized this actual real-life attempt at doing so by the bishops.  Indeed, many of these same voices have supported the bishops.

The bishops warned about “religious oppression” even when the Catholic Hospital Association celebrated the arrangement that the Obama Administration worked out, making sure that health insurance companies will pay for free contraception without involving the Catholic-sponsored employers who might object.

The only threat to religious freedom was the attempt by the bishops to deny religious freedom to the employees of those institutions  -- both Catholic and Other – whose religious consciences are totally at peace with the use of contraception.

Nobody is preventing the bishops from preaching their version of God’s will. Their problem is that they have not persuaded Catholic women.

Football, Rape, Cash: Idolatry

Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on


I watched with horror but little surprise as thousands of Penn State students rioted against the firing of Head Football Coach Joe Paterno for failing to call the police when apprised of the rape of children by his assistant –-- even when a grad student told him of actually witnessing the anal rape of a ten-year-old boy.

The fact that a few days later, thousands of students mourned the damage to  dozens of young lives felt like only the first small step toward compassion, toward comfort.

For it is the systematic idolatry of football at Penn State  and beyond that is the true culprit -- not merely Joe Paterno or the alleged multiple rapist, Jerry Sandusky, or the now dismissed president of the University and his indicted colleagues

These people were merely the priests of that idolatrous cult.  Football brought oceans of prosperity to Penn State, as to other colleges and businesses –- and like many ancient and modern idolatries, whoever / whatever can bring such abundance is a god and Its priesthood is too sacred to be doubted.

What is idolatry? It is turning a pleasing and partial aspect of the universe, a single limited aspect of the  Holy, into the Ultimate.  It is falling on our faces and closing our eyes before it, blinding ourselves to its flaws,  as if it were the Interbreathing of all life, the Majestic Order of all existence.

The Talmud tells a tale of a Jew who came to one of the ancient rabbis: “I have bought a Roman house with beautiful pool and waterfall. At one end of the pool is a beautiful statue of Venus. Must I destroy it as an idol?”

“It depends,” answered the rabbi. “If the pool was put there to adorn and celebrate the statue, it is an idol. Destroy it. If the statue was sculpted to adorn and beautify the pool, then it is art. Enjoy it.”

Football has its place. Although the idolatry of More Cash has made it more violent -- even sometimes fatal -- that could be changed if Cash were not the central goal. It could be an example of graceful speed, agility, accuracy, and strength – an example of how delightful the human body can be, one of the glorious unfoldings of Divine grace and Divine Grace, love beyond merit.

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