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BLOCKING "ICE" HQ in Washington DC

Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on

On Tuesday (July 16), I took part in a large Jewishly sponsored action -- "NEVER AGAIN MEANS NOW!" blocking entrances to the ICE headquarters in Washington DC. Ten of us at one of the entrances were arrested; evidently once ICE had opened that entrance they decided not to arrest those of us at other entrances. We sat blocking them for a sweltering three hours, after a huge gathering (more than 1,000) at the Mall. 

I was invited by the organizers to speak at both places. One the Mall I lifted up specific Torah passages about how to treat refugees (Deut 23: 15-16) and immigrants (Num 11) and spoke about the Shoah as bearing holy lessons for our own generation.

The Washington Post (plus other papers around the country that picked up the WaPo story)  quoted me:


"'You can't use a dictionary or an encyclopedia to understand the word 'concentration camp'; what you need is a calendar, because concentration camps over time turn into death camps if you don't stop them,' said Rabbi Arthur Waskow, 85, who came from Philadelphia to stand outside the doors of ICE headquarters.
"Waskow, who became a rabbi after beginning public life as a civil rights activist more than 55 years ago, said he was ready to be arrested. He stood at the door as officers inside milled about. On his shirt, Waskow wore this message: 'Resisting tyrants since Pharaoh.'” 

I had added that  in organizing to affirm and embody that  “Never Again is Now,” we are not demeaning the memory of the Six Million but blessing their memory. For the most sacred wisdom we can take from the Holocaust is the understanding of how to halt any campaign of cruelty and subjugation against any community that could lead toward genocide. 

The Trumpist policy of cruelty toward both refugees and immigrants has already taken the first steps on that march into the darkest of disasters. “Never again” must indeed mean action now. 

 Every society faces that profound question: How do we treat "outsiders"? With love, or with fear, hatred, and violence? The American people and our government are not the first society in history to face the basic spiritual question of how to respond to people from outside the community. Long ago, the Hebrew Bible taught how to respond both to refugees and to settled immigrants. Torah pointed the way toward lchoosing love, for every society that inherits its wisdom -- though some have turned away from that wisdom. Torah teaches:

“If people flee a tyrannical master, do not force them to return to their master. Welcome them to live within your borders wherever they choose. Do not maltreat them!”  (Deut. 23:16-17)

 “If a foreigner who lives in your country wishes to take part in Passover (the Festival of Freedom), welcome them to take part just as you do, for  there must be one law for the home-born and the foreigner.” (Num. 9:14)

 At the deepest roots of our morality are these 3000-year-old teachings of wisdom. Thank God – literally! -- that thousands today are acting to affirm them. 

 The reporter asked whether, at 85, I was tired of protesting. As the Post reports, I said:

“‘I'm not tired, but I am sad that it is still necessary to do this. I can't imagine how my grandparents, who came to this country thinking they could make a life of freedom here, how they would be feeling now,' he said, his voice shaking. 'It horrifies me to imagine.'"

At the ICE HQ, as we prepared to risk arrest, I retold the story of the first recorded acts of nonviolent civil disobedience:  the midwives Shifra & Puah who refused to obey Pharaoh’s orders to kill newborn babies, and then Miriam & Bat Pharaoh’s daughter, who saved Moses’ life. Probably the first act of resistance, I said, and for sure the second were “international feminist conspiracies”  -- just as Jews and Latinx were joining in these actions to protect refugees and immigrants.

And the Pharaoh's attack on children pointed toward a repeated tactic of tyrants who have planned genocide: Attack the children first. Since the human instinct to protect human children is so strong, if the tyrant gets away with that it proves these children are not really human -- and then their whole communiity can be dehumanized and murdered.

Beyond even that, for Pharaoh and for Trump, is a policy of bringing Plagues upon our Planet. The impulse to subjugate others, even Earth herself, becomes an addiction. Every act of resistance  -- protecting and freeing immigrants, and Blacks, and Muslims, and women, and the poor, and the suffocated middle class, and the free press, and Congress, and Earth -- becomes an act of protection for all the othes who are under attack.

 For a fuller report and more photos, see https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/10-protesters-arrested-inside-ice-headquarters-in-washington/2019/07/16/f030bb8e-a7d9-11e9-a3a6-ab670962db05_story.html?utm_term=.8c9c41f3e536

 Shalom, salaam, paz, peace -- the peace that is rooted in justce --  Arthur

July 4: Interdependence with All Life, Independence from All Tyranny

Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on

 

On July 4, 1963, I was sitting comfortably reading the Declaration of Independence. (I was just about to complete my Ph.D dissertation in US history, on “The 1919 Race Riots,” and loved reading the facsimile copy of the Declaration that the NY Times publishes every year as a full-page  insert.)  The phone rang. Two friends of mine had just been arrested in Baltimore at a major “sit-in” to end racial segregation in a Baltimore amusement park – Gwynn Oak. And oh, the sit-in would be repeated the following Sunday, July 7. Could I send money for bail

I was living in Washington DC, Baltimore was my home town, and in the ‘50s, I went to my high-school and college proms at Gwynn Oak. Till 1954, the public schools were segregated, and Johns Hopkins had exactly one Negro student in each of the four undergrad classes. I had written against racial segregation, but in those days I certainly lived inside it.

 

I gulped, and said “of course,” and sent the money.

 

And then I sat there shvitzing. Here I was reading the Declaration, and my friends were living it. My hear was beating ---  “Come on, Waskow! What’s the point?!!”

 

So I went to Baltimore on July 7, joined the sit-in with my friends who, unexpectedly, found a way actually Here’s my sense fwhat we face today and what wee need to the park,  and just as a mob of white segregationists found us and was about to kill my friends and me – got saved by the cops arresting us. 

And came away shaken into a new place in my life. Historian? OK. Commentator on contemporary public policy? OK. Activist? Ummmm, ummmm, OK.  YES, OK!!  Arrested some 25 times since then.

 

Now I see the Declaration as a living document, not locked away in history books or in archaic typography on a page of NYT.  Alive, changing, demanding new thought, new action. Transformed by Frederick Douglass, by the women of Seneca Falls, by Emma Goldman. Transformed by the world we live in, by the last three years of a would-be fascist US President. Unimaginable in 1963. All too real in 2019.

So I am willing to rewrite it and far more important, re-do it.

So here’s my sense of what we believe, what we face, where we need to reach, and what we need to do:  With the help of a God Who is not above us but pervades us, breathes us, and Whom we breathe ==  Arthur   

July 4, 2019:

Interdependence with All Life;

Independence from All Tyranny

 

 For many Americans, the 13-starred Flag of the American Revolution continues to symbolize resistance to tyranny. Below you will find a new “Declaration of Life Intertwined and Independence from Corporate and Governmental Tyranny.” We recommend it for conversation in gatherings this weekend -- gatherings of prayer, of friendship, of political concern -- in advance of the Fourth of July as well as on the Fourth itself and afterward. 

"O Beautiful for Patriots' Dream that sees Beyond the Years --  Thine alabaster cities gleam, Undimmed by Human Tears! --  America, America, God Amend Thine Every Flaw -- confirm thy Good in Sister/Brotherhood,  thy Liberty through Law!   America! America! God shed full grace on thee Till selfish gain no longer stain the Banner of the Free!"

A NEW DECLARATION: INTERDEPENDENCE OF ALL LIFE;

INDEPENDENCE FROM ALL TYRANNY

We hold these truths to grow from the life-experience of all Humanity:

That all men and women are created equal in dignity and worth, as necessary and distinctive strands of the great Web of life intertwined, and are through that interdependence endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights and responsibilities. That among these are –

  • The sharing of Beloved Community throughout our planet, growing through responsible relationships that embody, heal, and uphold that sacred web of life;
  • Peace among all peoples;
  • Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and a life-sustaining, health-sustaining share of Earth’s abundance;
  • Honorable jobs with living wages and income, based on livable hours of work;
  • A rhythm of work and rest that frees time for family, neighborhood, citizenly involvement, and the spirit;
  • Self-government in political, economic, and cultural life, including public support for grass-roots co-ops and  democratic elections to govern large corporations and legislatures not controlled by wealth.

We affirm that governments, corporations, and other institutions that have a major impact on the lives of the people are founded solely to secure these rights and uphold these responsibilities, deriving their just powers from the consent of those they govern and whose lives they shape.

We now face a political system contrary to these values, destructive of democracy, and dangerous to the liberty and prosperity of a free people:

The present President and Senate of the United States have both been chosen by minorities of our people, in elections dominated by huge inflows of money from hyperwealthy individuals and corporations; by exclusion of many voters of color, youth, and poverty; by the gerrymandering of  many election districts; and by the deliberate covert intrusion of a foreign power.

The result is a President who has poisoned the sacred interwoven Web of Life in which the human race and the American people live and have our being; has tried to shatter the interwoven moral web in which different American individuals and communities serve our common good -- E Pluribus Unum; and has violated crucial provisions of the Constitutional covenant on which our people have agreed -- especially provisions that limit presidential power so as to protect and advance democracy:

By violating the Constitutional provision that no money be taken from the Treasury unless it is appropriated by Congress;

By illegally and unconstitutionally preventing federal officials from obeying  subpoenas compelling testimony before Congress and its committees;

By unconstitutionally initiating and carrying on endless wars without a declaration of war by Congress and in violation of the United Nations Charter; 

By violating US and international law regarding the welcoming and humane treatment of refugees;

By seeking to destroy health care for millions of Americans;

By destroying and frightening millions of families by deporting hard-working and law-abiding immigrants; by tearing children, even babies, from the arms of their parents; by failing even to keep records that would make possible the reunification of these families -- practices abhorrent to our people and estimable to tyrants only;

By carrying on endless wars and risking new ones without a Declaration by Congress, against international and American law as embodied in the  binding treaty of the United Nations Charter, and to the deep detriment of American society;

By acting to destroy all efforts to prevent climate disaster, the scorching of our planet, and the death in extreme floods, droughts,  storms wildfires, and newly widespread diseases of millions of human beings -- all in order to secure Hyper-Wealth to the Corporate Carbon Pharaohs;

By reinforcing racism in police behavior, in mass incarceration, and in the unequal application of unjust laws;

By inciting hatred and acts of violence against the Black, Muslim, Indigenous, Jewish, and immigrant communities;

By ending protections for pure food, water, and air;

By pursuing the deregulation of banks and other financial institutions, privileging their power and restoring the conditions that led to the disastrous Great Recession of 2008-2009.

Beneath all these specific acts, and encouraging them all, is the power of large corporations -- especially those in banking, the military-industrial complex, health care, and fossil fuels – to dominate many branches and aspects of the American government and deeply damage both American democracy and the American future.

And beneath all these specific acts, and encouraging them all, is the present President's deliberate encouragement and incitement of racism, sexism, and hostility to those who live in poverty, as a diseased strand of American culture, economics, and politics, in such ways as to divide our society, incite violence against racial, religious, and sexual minorities, and thereby help the powerful and wealthy trample on the legitimate needs of the poor and the middle class.

We affirm that to redress these wrongs, it is incumbent upon the American people to undertake nonviolent action through elections, lobbying, free speech, free press, and free assembly in marches, strikes, boycotts, sit-ins, teach-ins, rallies, and vigils;

And therefore we demand:

I.  A Constitutional amendment defining as a right of all human beings the existence of a climate and web of life and viable species that is life-giving, and requiring Congress to pass laws to guarantee that right.

II.  A Constitutional amendment defining as rights analogous to those in the Bill of Rights the right of actual full employment with a living income for all on the basis of a 32-hour work week, the right of workers to organize unions,  and the right to  universal health care.

III.  A Constitutional amendment providing that the President of the United States is subject while in office as an individual to provisions of Federal criminal law regarding felonies and civil lawsuits.

IV. A Constitutional amendment requiring that all large corporations that do any business in the United States be periodically and publicly reviewed in seven-year intervals concerning renewal of their charters  to do business, by a jury of citizens chosen from the normal panel for civil lawsuits, to ensure and enforce that they are meeting the needs and balancing the interests of their stockholders, workers, customers, the  environment, and society as a whole.

V. A Constitutional amendment providing that all persons born in the United States or naturalized as citizens and all persons resident in the United States for seven years or more be registered to vote at birth, naturalization, or upon seven years of residence, and shall be qualified to vote in all elections where they reside upon reaching the age of 18. 

Vi. A Constitutional amendment to pay for all election campaigns solely by public contributions by the US or the states, and contributions from natural persons, i.e. actual human beings, under limits set by Congress; and providing that all election districts shall be defined without regard to race, religion, or political affiliation. 

VIi.  A Constitutional amendment providing that the Constitutional right to bear arms can be regulated by the governments of municipalities and states, in whatever ways seem wisest to them, so long as the manifest intent and effect of the regulation is to protect, not endanger, the health and safety of the public.

VIiI. A Constitutional amendment providing for the full equality and equal rights of women, men, and persons of all genders and sexual orientations, in political and economic life and health decisions, including the availability of birth control to all persons and the right of women to choose abortions during the first two trimesters of pregnancy, and later under conditions honoring health needs of the mother and fetus.

IX. A Constitutional amendment prohibiting the death penalty, the imposition of solitary confinement, and prison sentences of more than 20 years for any crime not involving physical violence.

X. Strong laws to prevent global climate disaster, to swiftly move the US and world economies from fossil-fuel dependence to renewable energy, and to restore and  renew a healthy, life-giving climate system for our children and grandchildren as it was for the generations of our parents and grandparents,  with a far greater attention to infusing eco-social justice for all into that relationship.

XI. An end to all US military action, overseas military bases, and the use of violence against any person by the military or any other US agency that have not been specifically authorized by Act of Congress, by the Security Council of the United Nations,  or by the issuance of a public arrest warrant by a Federal District Court after public pleadings.

XII. Restoration of full Congressional control over declaration or initiation of any war, as well as adherence to the United Nations Charter.  Reduction and redirection of US military spending to meet the needs of defense, not corporate subsidies; and the redirection of funds now wasted beyond those needs to meeting the urgent civilian needs of the American people and of poverty-stricken regions of the world.

XIII. Laws encouraging the creation of worker and consumer coops – businesses democratically controlled by their members on the principle of one member, one vote – especially at the grass-roots and neighborhood levels.

XIV. Abolition of all surveillance and collection of any data and metadata concerning any communication from or to any citizen or resident of the United States, without the issuance of a search warrant specifically naming and describing the person to be surveilled and the data to be collected — such warrants to be issued by a regular US District Court and made public no later than 90 days after issuance.

And to the achievement of these goals, with the help of the Holy Interbreathing Spirit of all life, and through our covenant with each other, we pledge our commitment, our nonviolent action, and our sacred honor.  

EMERGENCY 2: PREVENTING MASS DEPORTATIONS

Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on

 

Every Shabbat morning, I act as the "Weaver" for an hour’s conversation about a passage from the Torah reading of that Shabbat. This past Shabbat, as I read the weekly portion, looking for a passage we could focus on, I had ringing in my ears and in my heart the president's announcement that he had ordered a mass round-up of immigrants living in clusters in several major American cities, for mass deportation.

So I was happy to find that in the very Torah portion we were about to read, the Torah was already prepared with a challenge to this piece of subjugation:

 “Now when immigrants sojourn with you and wish to make a Passover-offering to YHWH  / Yahhh/the Holy InterBreath of Life, in this way shall they make it: according to the law of the Passover offering and according to its regulation. One law is there to be for you, for immigrant sojourners and for the natives of the land.” (Num 9: 14)

My understanding of this teaching is that if foreigners want to join with you in the Festival of Freedom, in celebrating the liberation of slaves from slavery to Pharaoh, welcome them! –for only by affirming one law for foreigners and natives can your land continue as a land of Freedom. 

Chant: ONE LAW / FOR IMMIGRANTS AND NATIVE-BORNS

And this passage reminded me to look up another passage from a Torah portion we will be reading in mid-September:

“If those who are oppressed {“serfs,” “servants,” slaves”} seek refuge with you from their masters, you are NOT to hand them over to their masters. Let them dwell beside you, among you, wherever within your borders seems good to them. Do not mistreat them!!” (Deut. 23:16-17)

Chant:  WELCOME REFUGEES/ DO NOT MISTREAT THEM

Do I invoke these ancient texts just because they are written in Torah?  No, I invoke them because they show that this question of the treatment we owe to immigrants and refugees has stirred the moral heart of our communities for at least 2500 years, and our moral forebears came down on the side of love, not fear.

The community in which this writing emerged saw itself as a whole nation of runaway slaves seeking freedom. So it was clear that other runaway slaves and all who celebrated freedom from Pharaoh’s slavery were to be welcomed, not excluded.  And notice that this applied to “economic refugees” fleeing a tyrannical boss as well as those fleeing a tyrannical government.

If we wish to see America as “sweet land of liberty” we must be open to these freedom-seeking immigrants and refugees, welcoming them to wherever THEY choose to live.

Not deported, not imprisoned in concentration camps, not tearing children, even babies,  from their mothers’ breasts, their fathers’ arms, to throw them into cages.

Oh yes, these ARE concentration camps. Not extermination camps, not yet. Those politicians who have denounced the use of that word as if it meant the same as “death camp” ignore the history that genocide happens in stages. Here is my analysis of where we are in that process:

 

  1. I think it is a mistake to have a linguistic debate over what label to apply to these detention centers for immigrants by -- on the one hand -- denouncing the use of the word  “ concentration camp” as if it were the same as “death camp,”  or -- on the other hand -- supporting the use of the words and explaining they are NOT the same as “death camps.”   BOTH THESE APPROACHES AVOID FACING THE TRUTH that dehumanization and ultimately genocide come in stages. “Concentration camps” may come early or in the middle of the process. If no one interrupts the process, it moves forward into death camps. The Nazi state opened the first “concentration camp” at Dachau in 1933 as a prison mostly for leftists. Humiliation and dehumanization of Jews and other "Untermenschen" went forward in many scattered spheres until the massive public attacks supported by the state on Kristallnacht. Even then, it took the years from 1938 to 1942 for the Nazis to make a formal decision to murder all the Jews of Europe.

2  Dehumanization and genocide are a process, not a single event. Most Americans so much want to believe that “it can’t happen here” that many of their minds go blank in facing the early and middle stages of the process, and desperately want to attack any language that hints that this process is under way and will continue unless we, they, act,. .

3, The Trumpists have taken step after step on that path, from Trump’s Hitlerian rhetoric on the down elevator in Trump Tower when he announced he was running, to the deliberate attacks on children -- and beyond.. Since the deepest instinct of every species is to protect its offspring, the only way some human beings can be persuaded to take part in or permit the destruction of human children is precisely to do that destruction, thereby proving those particular children are not human. So even if this project is especially difficult to carry out against opposition, it is crucial to the whole process to carry it out anyway.

  1. The planned mass deportations can only be carried out by defining certain neighborhoods and communities inside the United States – – in 10 major cities – – as really outside the American border and making war on those neighborhoods.   I think this may be the “Kristallnacht” moment in the process, or maybe just one stage less.  If that is allowed to happen,  the process will keep going. The two-week delay that Trump announced was probably a response to warnings from ICE that they simply did not have the manpower to carry it out. Several months ago, when the leadership of DHS said the same thing to Trump, he fired them. If I were Trump (God forbid), I would think the obvious solution is to use the U.S. Army. Plenty of manpower there. Illegal, of course, but that did not prevent his using them on the border. Maybe using them in NYC, Chicago, etc etc is still a bridge too far.
  1. This march toward genocide of brown-skinned folks who speak Spanish is not the only target for Trumpist subjugation. The list is long. It includes starving Iran into submission, after throwing away a remarkable diplomatic achievement in the nuclear disarmament of Iran, instead setting up a situation geared for war. . It includes the abuse of women, both personal and political. It includes the efforts to murder many millions of human beings and many other species that are crucial to Homo Sapiens,  for the sake of Hyper-Profits for the Corporate Carbon Pharaohs, and perhaps for the sheer joy of subjugation. That one has so far been the most successful and the least opposed.
  1. I think it is time to take Sifrei Torah into the streets. And Communion. And salat –Muslim prayer services. And Buddhist bells and drums. Into the streets and into the offices of Congressmembers and ICE. And the fence around the White House.  Please keep in mind that the great surge in support of the Green New Deal came when 150 young people sat-in on Speaker Pelosi’s office.  I do not believe that it is any longer sufficient to visit the concentration camps. We and the public now know how evil they are.  The focal point should now be the seats of power and the places that carry out their orders for arrest and deportation raids.

Because this dehumanization happens in stages, it can be stopped before it reaches genocide. Stopped IF we act. That is our job. Our religious commitment. Our moral obligation. Our spiritual fulfillment.

 Shalom, salaam, sohl, paz, peace! --  Arthur

Facing the White House in Moral Witness: great photos!

Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on

Dear friends of Truth, Justice, and Peace, the three pillars that hold up the world  --  

My life-partner Rabbi Phyllis Berman and I came home from Washington on Wednesday night both exhausted & exhilarated. We had prepared to risk arrest and were sorrowful that the Secret Service acted in such a way as to prevent anyone from doing that. -- And we were also persuaded that their very action was a sign of how much the White House feared how powerful this Moral Witness was and would be.

We had come determined to persist in our prophetic speech even if that meant risking arrest. The White House decided to fence us in, to prevent any acts of nonviolent civil resistance because the White House did NOT want to arrest one hundred clergy and other leaders of their faith communities.  They were afraid of that profound engagement of the Prophetic community. Their response was a signal of the strength of our protest.

We gathered Wednesday morning at a church near the White House – a church with a strong history of prophetic religious involvement. There were about 400 of us. There was a brief speech by Rev. Dr. Barber about the origins and purpose of the ”Moral Wednesday” action, in which he gave full honor to Interfaith Freedom Seder + 50  as its origin and to The Shalom Center for organizing that and for our involvement in the planning of this Moral Witness Wednesday.

I introduced a litany in which Sahar Alsahlani, Rev. Jacqui Lewis, and Rabbi Alana Suskin led the whole assemblage to take the purpose into itself. [In this photo, Reverend Dr. Barber is on the left, I'm on the right, and the three women leaders in between.]

(Two other members of our Board and one former member were present – Rabbis Jeff Roth and Mordechai Liebling, and Jeffrey Dekro. Mordechai and I, who had been deeply involved in the Planning Committee and in the Prophetic Council that emerged in the process,  were both speakers later at Lafayette Park across from the White House.) 

 There was a very strong representation of Jews, almost all Rabbis, many many of whom  came up to me to thank The Shalom Center for putting energy and outreach into the action. So did at least 20 Christians and Muslims who were among the many more who receive our Shalom Report letters. Truah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights --- also had a strong presence. Mordechai Liebling, who is on their Board, had a strong influence in persuading Truah to endorse the action.

 There had been detailed negotiations for more than a week between organizers for “Repairers of the Breach,” the home organization for Dr. Barber, with the US Park Police, who are responsible for Lafayette Park. The Park Police explained in detail when and where insisting on speaking would bring arrests. All seemed arranged. But they warned that there was a chance that if someone under Secret Service protection (i.e. the President, his family, or a foreign dignitary staying at Blair House very close by) came out of the White House or Blair House, the Secret Service might keep us out of the Park, in theory for security reasons.

We undertook a 20-minute Procession from the church to Lafayette Park.

When we arrived, the Secret Service had indeed closed the Park. (We think but are not sure, that was because someone from the White House came out.  That may have been a deliberate effort by a family member to keep us away; we don’t know.) Meanwhile, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who is running for President and has made a point of his commitment to a prophetic religious outlook, showed up unbidden. The organizers took steps to ensure we would not look as if this Moral Witness were supporting a candidate.

After some waiting, the organizers started with the list of speakers on a bullhorn much weaker than the P.A. system already prepared on a platform/stage in the Park.  Rabbi Simcha Zevit -- who had at the Freedom Seder chanted in Hebrew the brief passage of Jeremiah (22: 1-5) that had inspired Dr. Barber to call for this action –- did so again at his request. This time she chanted both Hebrew and English in Haftarah melody.  Rabbi Jonah Pesner, director of the Reform Jewish community’s Religious Action Center,  blew the shofar (ram's horn) and later spoke.  Reverend Traci Blackmon of the United Church of Christ spoke, especially about the attempts of this White House to subjugate women.

Then I gave the three-minute talk that I hope you saw in my Shalom Report letter on Tuesday.

(See  --  https://theshalomcenter.org/content/rabbi-arthurs-talk-white-house-jeremiahjusticejune12 )

I called us to respond with the fierce urgency of NOW to this Adninistration's enabling of the Corporate Carbon Pharaohs that are burning Earth and poisoninhg neighborhoods. 

How should we respond to their deadly all-consuming fire? With a different kind of fire:  the inner fire of the Burning Bush, the inner fire of life and love and liberation. The inner fire that did not consume the Bush in which it burned. The Burning Bush that lit up the way to the Sea of Reeds, to Sinai, to the Cross, to Mecca, to Selma and to Memphis. The inner fire to defeat all pharaohs and their sins of subjugation and to heal the plagues they bring on Humankind and Mother Earth. The inner fire of the Burning Bush that we must carry home within us.

Then the Secret Service opened the Park. Rabbi Avruhm Addison spontaneously led many in the crowd in a song from the Psalms about opening the gates to praise the Breath of Life –

Pitchu li sha'arei tzedek
Avo vam odeh Yah.
Zeh hasha'ar YHWH/ Yahhhh
tzadikim yavo'u vo.

 

Open to me the gates of justice;
I will enter into them, giving thanks to Yahhhh,, the Breath of Life.
This is the gate of the Interbreathing Spirit of the world;
Those committed to justice shall enter into it.

 We heard the rest of the speeches, which ended with Mordechai Liebling speaking on this Administration’s violations of the Constitution. We were ready to cross Pennsylvania Avenue and risk arrest at the edge of the White House. But at that point, we discovered that the Secret Service had entirely superseded the Park Police, were not even pretending to physically protect some person from the "First Family" of Subjugators. Instead they were providing political protection.

They had sealed off Pennsylvania Ave, emplaced barriers on the edge of the Park and deployed officers on the Avenue.  They made it impossible to risk arrest.

(I remembered that Mr. Trump at the same time he had dumped leaders of the Department of Homeland Security and the Border Patrol for not being cruel enough, had replaced a career chief of the Secret Service with a personally chosen favorite. "Caesar's Praetorian Guard?" I wondered at the time.)

So the organizers decided to pin our petitions to the barriers and end the protest. 

 Before we left, however, I decided to speak to the police officers of the Secret Service, as I have on a number of occasions just before getting arrested.

 

 I said,

 “We recognize that you are acting under orders that are intended to deny us the full use of our First Amendment rights to speak the prophetic truths of Jeremiah. But we say to you: Remember that you are not only police officers, you are both human beings and Americans. Many who work in that building, that White House, are doing criminal acts that destroy lives.

 “As human beings, remember that they are burning Earth, where our children and grandchildren need to live. As Americans, remember they tore children from their mothers’ arms and put them in cages; and they have broken the Constitution in plain sight.  Remember you are more than police officers, you are human, you are Americans. Over the next days and weeks, remember who you truly are and figure out some ways to oppose these crimes committed inside the White House!  Remember!”

Rev. Jacqui Lewis, standing next to me in the photo above, picked up the theme, “Remember your souls!” and for several minutes the whole crowd of faith leaders picked it up: “Remember your souls!” “Remember your souls!” “Remember your souls!”

As I said to start with, when the White House decided to weaken our protest by preventing nonviolent civil disobedience, that was a signal of the strength of our protest. The White House did NOT want to arrest one hundred clergy and other leaders of their faith communities.  They were afraid of that profound engagement of the Prophetic community.

And we should stay aware that the Secret Service is now doing the political bidding of the President, not only his physcal protection. Another measure of the passion for subjugation that now defines and dominates this White House. The Sin of Subjugation is the opposite of Democracy. It is the opposite of Love.

Now we must carry the inner fire of the Burning Bush back home.

Shalom, salaam, sohl, paz, peace! -- Arthur

Rabbi Arthur's Talk at the White House for #JeremiahJusticeJune12

Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on

The Fires that Destroy -- or the Burning Bush:

The Inner Fire of Love and Liberation

[At about 11:30 am or Noon EDT on Wednesday June 12,  hundreds of faith leaders from many diverse communities will gather at the White House to challenge an Administration that has violated two Covenants: the Constitution and the moral Covenant at the heart of every religious, spiritual, and ethical tradition and community. We are gathering at what Jeremiah (22:1-5) called the royal palace, called together by Reverend Doctor William Barber when he spoke at the #FreedomSeder50 organized by The Shalom Center on April 7. Many of us intend to risk arrest if necessary to freely speak our prophetic message as the First Amendment provides. Below is what I intend to say. (I may need to drop a couple of paragraphs to fit the tight time allotted to each speaker) --  Reb Arthur, editor]

Invocation for #JeremiahJusticeJune 12,  at the White House

We are the generation
That stands between the fires.



Behind us as Americans
Are the flames of burning crosses lit by hate  


to choke our people in the smoke of terror;
Still worse – the burning bodies hung from trees,
Strange burning fruit.

Behind us the fire that consumed the Triangle Shirtwaist factory,
Killing 145 immigrant women workers because its owners locked the exit doors;

Not yet behind us the glare of gunfire exploding in our children.
 
Behind us as human beings
The fire and smoke
That rose from Auschwitz and from Hiroshima,
From the burning forests of the Amazon,
      torched for the sake of fast hamburger.
 
Not yet behind us the hottest years of human history
     that bring upon us
Melted ice fields. Flooded cities.
 Scorching droughts. Murderous wildfires.
 
Before us we among all life-forms
face the nightmare of a Flood of Fire,
The heat and smoke that could consume all Earth.

Where are we now, right now? ?

We face inside the White House the fires of the sin of subjugation –- threats to destroy millions of people in “fire and fury,” the deliberate encouragement of burning still more coal and oil and unnatural gas to scorch and burn our Mother Earth for the sake of hyper-wealthy Corporate Carbon Pharaohs  --  all for the sake of the sin of subjugation, misbegotten from greed and arrogance, cruelty and hate:

Subjugation of racial, religious, ethnic, sexual, and gender minorities; of women denied the freedom of their own consciences; of children ripped from their parents’ arms; subjugation of the suffocating middle class, of workers, of family farmers, of the poor, and of people who fall sick; of immigrants and refugees; of the free press; subjugation of the Congress and of the Constitution; subjugation even of Earth, our common home.

The worst threat to American democracy since the Civil War.

The worst threat to human survival since our earliest human forebears ventured forth out of our African birthplace. 

What must we do? We must light again in our own hearts the fire of love and liberation that burned in the Burning Bush. The fire that did not destroy the Bush it burned in, the Fire that never was extinguished, can never be extinguished. The fire of the Burning Bush that lit the way to Sinai, to the Cross, to Mecca. The fire in the heart of every community and all Creation.  The fire that still lights the way to the Covenant for justice, compassion, healing and the empowerment of all.

It is our task to make from that fire
Not an all-consuming blaze
But the light in which we see more clearly
The Rainbow in the many-colored faces of all life.

We must relight the inner fire of the Burning Bush that lit the way to Rabbi Heschel, “Where some are guilty [of terrible acts], all of us are responsible [to stop them].”  The fire of love and liberation that called on Brother Malcolm to give his life in pursuit of his new and deeper understanding of the universal message of Islam.  The inner fire that called Dr. King to give his life for love of Blacks killed for daring to vote, of Vietnamese farmers burnt by napalm,  of American soldiers sent to die for the sake of subjugation, of garbage workers treated as if they themselves were garbage, of the first multiracial Poor Peoples Campaign  --  all and always, in pursuit of the Beloved Community.

It is the Burning Bush that burned and burned and was not consumed that brings us here today and that we light again  --

 So that we leave here with the Burning Bush aflame within us, to ACT for love and liberation.

Faith Leaders Challenge White House

Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on

#JeremiahJusticeJune12

Dear friends of compassion, justice, peace, and healing --

 I am writing to share more details of the #JeremiahJusticeJune12 gathering of faith leaders at the White House, led by Rev. Dr. William Barber. I very much hope you will join in that gathering.   

Webinar: Climate, Torah, Activism

Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on

Healing Earth in 4 Worlds --

Prayer, Wisdom, Activism, Hands-on

 I will be leading and weaving a Webinar on four aspects of healing the deeply wounded climate that is already flooding, burning, droughting, and diseasing many patches of our planet, and threatens far worse to human civilization in every region. 

The Webinar will run on four Tuesday evenings – May 7, 14, 21, and 28, from 7 to 9 pm, Eastern Time. It will especially address how to draw on religious and spiritual traditions, practices, and symbols to awaken into vigorous action the “sleepy giant” of our religious communities. The sessions will be recorded; so they will be available for watching if you cannot make those dates.

Why am I doing this? There is the out-there reason and the in-here reason.

“Out there,” the human race is faced with the most momentous crisis in our history as a species –- the climate crisis, brought on us by the behavior we have allowed from a group of Corporate Carbon  Pharaohs and their governmental enablers. In the Hebrew Bible is encoded a treasury of the spiritual experience long ago of an indigenous people, whose shepherds and farmers lived close to the Earth and cared for it. 

“In here”: I have been working on healing our climate, our Earth, and ourendangred humanity for almost 20 years. Many people have led or taken part in activist sit-ins, marches, lobbies; a number of people have explored the spiritual religious wisdom about Earth. Very few have done both. I am one of the few people who has both explored the deep meanings of Torah as it addresses food kashrut and energy eco-kashrut, the earthiness of festivals, and the sacred Earth-protecting covenant between the generations; and has also been an activist for change in the streets, our pocketbooks, and the halls of Congress. 

Today we can draw on the ancient sacred treasury of Earthy wisdom and of course transform it to meet the needs of our own generation –--  the most urgent and creative midrash we have ever needed – in prayer, theology, activism, and hands-on change.


The Jewish mystics taught that the Creation of the world unfolded in four stages: God’s sheer Intention to create; Intellectual and Artistic creativity; emotional Interconnection; and actual Physicality.

This Webinar will in four sessions explore how these Four Worlds can provide a pattern for human beings to undertake fiercely urgent transformational work to heal our common home.  

1) Direct prayerful experience of the Earth (e.g. going outside to hear the Trees’ prayer as part of our own prayer service);

(2) Biblical theology of Earth (e.g. the meanings of Eden, manna, Pharaoh’s plagues, Shabbat, the Sabbatical Year);

3) Public ceremonies and other forms of activism that unite spirituality, eco-sanity, and social justice;

(4) Hands-on healing action (e.g. organizing solar co-ops. 

Please click  to https://theshalomcenter.org/civicrm/event/register?id=24&reset=1

in order to register for the Webinar --including for access to the recordings.

Shalom, Arthur

#FreedomSeder50: Treasury of Films, Live-Streams, Articles, etc

Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on

The Shalom Center invites you to celebrate the Interfaith #FreedomSeder50 with us, during Passover or whatever time you set aside for reflection, commitment, and action.

  1. Browse or download the program booklet. 
  2. Gather some friends of any faith tradition. 
  3. Watch and share the videeo vignettes or the whole live-stream in your gatherings. 
  4. Consider contributing to the Shalom Center.
  5. Co-create freedom, justice, and healing of the Earth in your own way.
[ Above: Rev. Dr. William Barber and the wonderfully multiracial, multireligious, multigendered line-up of speakers and singers]

LIVESTREAM FULL VIDEO OF INTERFAITH FREEDOM SEDER + 50 with thanks to Bonfire Media Collective - Maddie Taterka and Helyx Chase Scearce Horwitz

To watch full video, click triangle in the middle of the photo below.


PROGRAM BOOKLET PDF with thanks to Jim Gerhard, design & layout

PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER ARTICLES with thanks to Ron Goldwyn, media coordinator

PHOTOS FROM APRIL 7, 2019 SHALOM CENTER FREEDOM SEDER + 50 with thanks to Ellie Seiff, photographer

[Below: Ana Maria Archila, Rev Rhetta Morgan, Rev.Greg Holston]


NOTES WITH TIME MARKERS FOR LIVESTREAM VIDEO with thanks to Arlene Goldbard, Shalom Center board president

CONTRIBUTE TO THE SHALOM CENTER 

Elijah at Your Seder & New "Go Down Moses"

Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on

Dear friends, I have already written you how transformed and transformative was the #FreedomSeder50 just over a week ago, including Reverend William Barber's prophetic outcry for a protest by hundreds of clergy at the White House on June 6. I also shared how the Bible’s story of ancient resistance by women echoes in the painful and hope-filled stories of the subjugation and resistance of women today, told by Ana Maria Archila.  

Today I want to bring you two more aspects of the #FreedomSeder50  that you can bring into your own Seder, or into Holy Thursday tonight, or into evening iftar break-fasts during Ramadan soon to come.

We began the Seder evening by lifting up one of the most basic aspects of the Seder: the dialogue between elders and the younger generation. (For an exploration of this aspect of the Seder, see my paragraph just after the "Read more" in red at the "end"of this essay.)This time the dialogue was for the sake of the survival of the human race and much of life on earth.

On the Shabbat just before Pesach begins, we hear this same intergenerational motif by reading the last passage of the last of the Prophets, Malachi 3:23-24: “Before the coming of the great and awesome day of YHWH, the Interbreathing Spirit of the world, I will send you Elijah the Prophet to turn the hearts of the parents to the children and the hearts of the children to the parents, lest I [God] come and smite the Earth with utter destruction.”

So we did what the words say. We made ourselves Elijah. We brought the hearts of elders and youngers to meet each other by facing the most dangerous of all the tyrannical oppressions of our modern Pharaohs: their obsession with burning the world for the sake of Hyper-Profits. In the dinner just before the Seder, we brought me as Elder and a young man, Xavier Thomas, together to respond to the danger that our planet, our only home, is on the verge of burning.

On Seder night, just before you open the door for Elijah, you can overhear what it must mean for us all to become Elijah, by clicking here and sharing these seven minutes with the table:

Rabbi Waskow & Xavier Thomas: Elijah’s Covenant between the Generations, the Sunrise Movement, and the Green New Deal: <https://vimeo.com/330534521/34dfc639ea>

Three hours later, we ended the Seder by singing an old song created by Black America to recall the ancient Jewish liberation, Go Down Moses. We took its stretch across the centuries and different cultures to another level, with two new verses for the present and the future. . We invite you to join with #FreedomSeder50 by clicking to hear Reverend Rhetta Morgan lead us:

Rev Rhetta Morgan: "Go Down Moses"  or <https://youtu.be/DMm-pdVCNdo>

When Israel was in Egypt’s land, Let My people go;
Oppressed so hard they could not stand, Let My people go;
Go down, Moses, way down in Egypt’s land,
Tell old Pharaoh: Let My people go!
 
As Israel stood by the water-side, Let My people go;
At God’s command it did divide, Let My people go.
Go down, Moses, way down in Egypt’s land,
Tell old Pharaoh: Let My people go!
 
When they had reached the other shore, Let My people go;
They sang the song of freedom o’er, Let My people go.
Go down, Moses, way down in Egypt’s land,
Tell old Pharaoh: Let My people go!
 
Oh, set all Earth from bondage free, Let all My peoples go;
And let all life be free to Be, Let air and water flow.
Rise up, Yes Rise up -- No longer down in every land  --
Tell ALL Pharaohs: Let My Creation grow!
 
As we live here in America, Set our people free!
In all our colors we Resist, from Sea to shining Sea!
Rise up, O People, Rise up all across our Land--
Tell new Pharaohs, your oppressions will not stand!

And as I did yesterday, once more I invite you to bring into your own Seder the moment when  400 of us were deeply moved by the prophetic fervor with which  Reverend William Barber called for a: gathering of 1,000 clergy of all faiths at the White House on June 6. He quoted -- and more than quoted, he channeled -- Jeremiah's call to challenge a corrupt and murderous king at his own royal palace.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g64-r2NUn8k&feature=youtu.be

At a Seder, you could connect it with the Haggadah passage that says, ““In every generation, all human beings must look upon ourselves as if we ourselves, not our forebears only, go forth from slavery to freedom.”

We offer these videos as a gift for your own Seder, or Holy Thursday tonight, or an evening Iftar break-fast early in Ramadan (which begins in the Western calendar on the evening of May 5).  Once you have watched these videos yourself, please send this letter to all your friends and post it to social media with the hashtag #FreedomSeder50.

And then please feel free to play these brief video moments for everyone around your table to see, to hear, to discuss.

We at The Shalom Center will work to make these prophetic seeds grow into reality.  Please join us in growing them by making a contribution to The Shalom Center, and by spreading this message.

Please  share this letter with your friends by clicking to https://theshalomcenter.org

and please click on the maroon “Contribute” button just below.

Blessings that we sow the seeds of fuller freedom now and grow them to flower in our future! --  Arthur

Your Seder: "What Is This Matzah?" "Who are these Troublesome Women?"

Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on

Dear friends, I have already written you how transformed and transformative was the #FreedomSeder50 just over a week ago. My letter yesterday lifted up for you Reverend William Barber's prophetic outcry for a protest by hundreds of clergy at the White House on  June 6.

Today I want to bring you some other aspects of the #FreedomSeder50  that you can bring into your own Seder, or into your own observance of the other holy festivals that Christians are observing now and Muslims will be observing very soon.

The traditional Seder does not  lift up the early resistance to Pharaoh that was initiated by women. First there were the midwives Shifra and Puah, who refused to obey Pharaoh's orders to kill newborn boys of the Hebrew-speaking community. Then there were Miriam and Pharaoh's own daughter, who joined in an "international feminist conspiracy" to save Moses' life from the same murderous decree.

Both the order itself and the women's resistance are echoed in our own lives today, as children are ripped fom their parents' arms and forced to live in cages, traumatized, and as  women march outside the official political system and as new office-holders within it speak unwelcome truths.

At the #FreedomSeder50  Ana Maria Archila, who confronted a US Senator with  Truth in a US Capitol elevator, spoke her own truth in a profoundly moving story of her life. it was quite different in tone from Reverend Barber's outcry -- and just as deep.  We suggest that at your  Seder, read the passage about Shifra and Puah from Exodus I: 15-21, and then introduce into your Seder this moment of a woman's truth today:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFhbB-PVc-8&feature=youtu.be

And there is a moment in the Seder when we lift up the Matzah to explain how this bread of affliction, the bread of the desperately poor and powerless, became the bread of freedom. At that moment we invite you to bring into the Seder the brief video of my own lifting of the Matzah at the #FreedomSeder50 -- in which I connected the Matzah with a teaching of Dr. Martin Luther King. You can watch it now at --

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLou4WpS0yA&feature=youtu.be

And as I did yesterday, I invite you once more to bring into your own Seder the moment when  400 of us were deeply moved by the prophetic fervor with which  Reverend William Barber called for a: gathering of 1,000 clergy of all faiths at the White House on June 6. He quoted -- and more than quoted, he channeled -- Jeremiah's call to challenge a corrupt and murderous king at his own royal palace.

To have just a taste of that moment, click this link to watch and hear four minutes of Reverend Barber’s prophetic eloquence:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g64-r2NUn8k&feature=youtu.be

At a Seder, you could connect it with the Haggadah passage that says, ““In every generation, all human beings must look upon ourselves as if we ourselves, not our forebears only, go forth from slavery to freedom.”

We offer these videos as a gift for your own Seder, or Holy Thursday, or an evening Iftar break-fast early in Ramadan. Please feel free to play these brief video moments for everyone around your table to see, to hear, to discuss. Once you have watched these videos yourself, please send this letter to all your friends and post it to social media with the hashtag #FreedomSeder50.

We need your help to move forward with all that was catalyzed at the Seder, especially Reverend Barber's impassioned call for clergy to come to the White House on June 6. I have been invited by Reverend Barber to join the planning committee and the Council of Prophetic Voices for that action.

Our work is certainly cut out for us – it will take time and money --  to reach out to Jewish and other clergy, encourage support by all communities of Spirit, and engage the media so everyone is aware of this historic action. Please join us in making this Call a reality by making a contribution to The Shalom Center, and by spreading this message.

Please  share this letter with your friends by clicking to https://theshalomcenter.org/your-seder-what-matzah-who-are-these-troublesome-women

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