Rabbi Arthur Waskow's newest book, Dancing in God's Earthquake: The Coming Transformation of Religion is his sketch of an achievable future that will heal American society from its bitterness and Earth from its deeo wounds. Gloria Steinem, Ruth Messinger, Rev. William Barber; Rabbis Art Green, Jonah Pesner, and Jill Hammer; Bill McKibben, Marge Piercy, and Jim Wallis have all read and praised it. Join them!
Let me share with you some responses from people who got to read the whole book :
The Torah reading for this coming Shabbat is called in Hebrew “Lech l’cha,” usually translated “Go you forth.” It is YHWH’s loving call to Avrum, who lives in the edge-lands of the great Babylonian Empire, to go beyond them, to where small communities tend sheep or tiny farms on rocky hillsides.
But “l’cha” means literally “toward you,” maybe “toward yourself” or even “ toward your self.”
Walk forth, away from where you are -- where you are used to -- to find your true self.
Who sends him on this journey? YHWH, the sacred Reality Whose Name can only be pronounced by simply breathing. (Try pronouncing “YHWH” with no vowels, not “Yahweh” or “Yehovah.”) The Breath of Life has sent him forth to find himself.
This week, the American people has heard this Call. We are living through many unaccustomed earthquakes, which have toppled many of our accustomed idols.
Some of these idols we ourselves have begun to rock from their pedestals. The idol that said that health was only a private concern and didn’t need any serious public action. The idol that said racism was only a private nastiness, not a systemic infection. The idol that said we could do anything we wanted to Planet Earth, and never have to deal with fires, floods, or famines. The idol that said that billionaires amidst dead-end poverty did not threaten our democracy.
Do we try to run back to prop up these once-familiar idols, or “go forth to find our true selves”?
We begin this Tuesday morning – and we will follow on every Tuesday morning -- with a brief passage -- sometimes, like this one, a telegraphic version -- from Rabbi Arthur Waskow’s new book, Dancing in God's Earthquake: The Coming Transformation of Religion. He calls this book the “harvest of my whole life-experience – and like a harvest, intended not only to draw on the past but to feed the future.”
Torah: “God creates Humanity in God’s Image.”
Talmud: “What does this mean? When Caesar stamps his image on a coin, all the coins come out identical. When the Holy One stamps the Divine Image on each human ‘coin,’ they each come out unique, different.”
The Gospels: A conservative clergyman to Rabbi Jesus: “Shall we pay taxes with this coin?” Jesus (who knows the Talmud teaching) : “Whose image is on the coin?” Conservative: “Caesar’s!” Jesus: “And whose Image is on this coin [placing his hand on the conservative's shoulder]?” Conservative: [“Ummm.”] Jesus: “You know! So give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and give to God what is God’s!” Conservative: Stumbles away, abashed.
My eight-year-old grandchild: “God is invisible. How can there be an image of God? Maybe it's the other way around, the human image is placed on God. But we are all different from each other. -------- Oh! Maybe we are different from each other the way the pieces in my jigsaw puzzle are different from each other. You have to fit us together, and if you fit us together we make a community. And a community is more like God.”
OR a congregation can order a minimum of 10 copies at a 50% discount, by calling 1-800-258-5838), for a congregational conversation, a book club, etc. You can bring Reb Arthur to join the conversation by writing Office@theshalomcenter.org with “Book conversation” in the subject line.
We read in Torah this coming Shabbat the story of the Flood, Noah, the Ark, the Rainbow.
For centuries of Modernity, enlightened opinion about the biblical story of the Flood was that it never happened and it never can, it never will. The destruction of all life on Earth? Preposterous!
No longer. The ancient midrash that human beings might bring about a Flood of Fire -- given new force in a Black Southern song:
”God gave Noah the Rainbow Sign:
No mere water, the Fire next time!”
What can we learn from this preposterous story, now that it stares us in the face – thermonuclear fire and global scorching, fire of our own making? We can see it nit as factual history but as a teaching story, a parable. Waiting for a day to come when we would need to investigate its wisdom.
One oddity in the story can point us toward a specific change: Dates. Times. . It specifies the date when the rain began to fall as "the seventeenth day of the second month." It names the date when the Ark’s passengers could disembark and receive the Rainbow Covenant: the "twenty‑seventh day of the second month." One lunar year plus eleven days: exactly one solar year.
A bow to the universal: If some other nations use a solar year, this happened to us all, we must take account of both ways of measuring time.
And the story specifies how long the rain lasted, the date when the waters stopped their rising, the date when dry ground first appeared, the date when the Ark landed. They are the only dates in all of Genesis: not Abram’s leaving home, not Jacob’s Godwrestle. Connect this fascination with the specific terms of God's response in the Rainbow Covenant. God mentions precisely the timely cycles through which life renews itself:
Never again will I doom the earth ...
Never again will I destroy all life
So long as the earth endures,
Seedtime and harvest,
Cold and heat,
Summer and winter,
Day and night,
Shall not cease.
... This is the sign that I set
For the covenant between Me and you
And every living creature with you,
For the generations forever:
I have set my bow in the clouds.
What are we to learn from this? In the age of Modernity, the sacred cycles of time have been thwarted. We have let our desire for “productivity" destroy our sense of holy time and holy cycles. We have become so drunk on our new ability to produce goods that we have forgotten to rest, reflect, contemplate, meditate, celebrate.
This hyper-productive mode, in which time is only a raw material of production, has taken us to the brink of hyper‑destruction. In a world that discards meditation and celebration as —literally — a waste of time, the H‑bomb, deforestation, the climate crisis, are all inevitable. The Flood and the Rainbow remind us that we must renew the cycles and our celebration of them in order to live.
Noah’s own name means “the restful one.” Only willingness to rest can save all life.
Religious communities are especially responsible to say that not only hard work and dire warnings, but also joyful rest and joyful hope are necessary if we are to heal our planet.
What else does the Rainbow teach? The Bible specifies that the Rainbow came on Mt. Ararat. This is surprising and important. Although the Flood was mythically universal — like water in that there was no place to pin it down — it ends at a well-known place with a specific name. Why there?
Because from Ararat, the mountain peak that looms in Turkey high above the Middle East, the Fertile Crescent is a unity. Just as the earth looks like a unity from space, so the "whole known world" looked from Ararat. That was where the human race looked like a single family in all itsinner variation: From many colors, one “adam.”
Indeed, the Rainbow itself was a heavenly reflection of the great arc of human settlements across the Middle East. And the Rainbow’s varied colors remind us that we can only preserve human unity if we accept human diversity. Just as the Flood perched the Ark upon Ararat where the Crescent could appear in its unity, so the same technology that gave us the Bomb and global scorching perched the rockets high above us, to give us our first glimpse of ourselves as one great ball of beauty. It is our collective danger that teaches us we are connected.
The great rabbinic commentator Nachmanides wrote that God gave the Rainbow by turning upside‑down the bow of war. "See," said God; "My bow can no longer shoot from Heaven. It is now my sign of peace and love and hope."
And in our day, ultimate destruction is also connected with the mutilated Rainbow. Those who have observed the awesome explosion of an H‑bomb have reported how beautiful and terrifying are the flashing myriad sparks of color that appear within the mushroom cloud. All the colors of the rainbow ‑‑shattered.
Similarly, in the oil slicks that spread for hundreds of miles across the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, the smeary, distorted colors of the Rainbow shone as a symbol of the disaster.
So the danger of the Flood of Fire still surrounds us. Those of us who, like Noah, are no experts must begin the building of the Earth as Ark. We must turn away from metaphors of military and economic warfare. In a war, having more weapons than the enemy might bring victory. But having more H-bombs than the “enemy” brings only more disaster to everyone. Pouring more CO2 into the atmosphere in order to win a “trade war” does not bring “victory”; it brings more disaster for everyone. Suppose we see actions that cause major ecological damage –- nuclear"war" and "trade wars" – not as war at all but falling into the category of Flood? That might change our ethical outlook in dealing with such actions.
Finally, the biggest lesson of all: The need for profound change. The story of the Flood recounts that even God must change at a time of great crisis. The story begins when God, seeing that the human imagination was drawn toward evil, determined to destroy all life, except for one human family led by Noah, and one pair of every species. God rained death on every being except those who took refuge with Noah on the Ark.
One solar year later, the waters subsided so that these refugees could emerge. And then God, though explicitly asserting once again that the human imagination is drawn toward evil, took an almost opposite tack: God promised that the cycles of life must never be destroyed again, insisted that new rules of behavior must govern human action in the future, and gave the Rainbow as a sign of this covenant.
Reinterpreting our older wisdom is the method by which we must learn today. It is not enough to reject the old traditions; nor is it enough to accept them. We must hear them, learn from them, wrestle with them, wring from them their quintessential truth, cast aside old husks of former meaning that are no longer fully truthful ‑‑ and we must live by our new understanding of their ancient wisdom. In my newest book, Dancing in God's Earthquake: The Coming Transformation of Religion, I have tried to do that.)
When Jews have been at our best in living life, this has been their most life-giving method — the midrashic method, the Godwrestling method. But in a time when the Flood threatens and the Rainbow beckons, this process needs to become a path that everyone, not only Jews, can walk. So here is a crucial learning that the Jewish people can offer, from its own corner of the hologram, to all of earth and all its earthlings:
You can learn from your own wisdom and transform it, without abandoning your own identity. We have done it when in a moment of great crisis we invented Rabbinic Judaism. In the story of the Flood, God does it; each human community can do it. Indeed, we must — if we are all to share in the planet’s flowering, not its doom.
Why is this important? Because most human communities would rather die than abandon their identities. They will choose to live and change only if they understand how to do this by renewing their identities.
Our sacred stories need to be renewed, understood anew, transformed. And so must be the more mundane pathways of our lives: our foods, our energy sources, our jobs, our businesses, our governments, our international and transnational relations.
[By Jeffrey Sachs. Dr. Sachs serves as the Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, where he holds the rank of University Professor, the university’s highest academic rank. Sachs was Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University from 2002 to 2016. He is President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network . The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author. They were published on October 14, 2020 by CNN.]
More than 216,000 Americans have already died of COVID-19. Yet on Tuesday, senior Trump administration officials said that they were receptive to pursuing "herd immunity," an approach touted by a group of scientists who have put out what they call the "Great Barrrington Declaration." The idea is that the federal government should let the pandemic run its course until most of the population is infected and has ostensibly developed antibodies to ward off future infections. Typical estimates hold that 70% or more of the population would thereby become infected.
According to this idea, vulnerable groups would be targeted for "focused protection," for example, introducing extra precautions such as frequent Covid-19 testing to avoid infections of the elderly living in nursing homes. The rest of the population "should immediately be allowed to resume life as normal," according to the declaration.
,
As if Donald Trump's irresponsibility was not already a national tragedy, the White House seems now to favor a controversial approach to Covid-19 that threatens to bring nothing less than mass suffering. The idea that we should not try to control infections other than of vulnerable groups is based on a complete misunderstanding of the real choices facing the US.
This approach runs strongly against the overwhelming consensus of public health specialists, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The new Covid-19 approach would undoubtedly add massively to the suffering in the US in a very short period of time.
The idea that we should not try to control infections other than of vulnerable groups is based on a complete misunderstanding of the real choices facing the US -- or facing any country for that matter. The core mistake is the belief that the only alternative to an economic shutdown is to let the virus spread widely in the population. Instead, a set of basic public health measures is enough, as many other countries have shown, to control the spread of the virus. The proper measures include widespread testing, contact tracing, isolating of infected individuals, wearing face masks, physical distancing, and barring super-spreader events (like Trump rallies). South Korea has exemplified this policy approach, as have many of its neighbors in the Asia-Pacific region.
Sadly, this very basic information seems not to have reached the White House or been understood by it, even though experts already knew in April that the Asia-Pacific region was suppressing the pandemic through these public health measures, and without the need for comprehensive lockdowns (or with only brief lockdowns to give time to scale up the public health measures). By suppressing the virus, these countries have limited the economic fallout.
Indeed, according to the IMF's new report, China, which has broken the pandemic by means of public health control, will achieve positive growth of GDP 1.9% this year, compared with America's expected GDP decline of 4.3%. The Trump team is so obsessed with their anti-China propaganda that they utterly refused to learn from China's success in cutting transmission of the virus enabling an economic rebound. Trump and his team have also refused to learn from similar successes in Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea, all of which have very low transmission of the virus.
The herd immunity approach is a nightmare for four reasons:
First, according to a study published in The Lancet in late September, fewer than 10% of Americans have so far been infected with the novel coronavirus. Another 60% or so of Americans would likely become infected in a herd immunity strategy. That amounts to around 200 million additional cases of Covid-19 in the United States and countless deaths. This would obviously be wanton madness, since the pandemic can be controlled by low-cost and proven public health means.
Second, there would absolutely be no reliable way to protect vulnerable populations through "focused protection." Many older people do not live in nursing or retirement homes where protective measure can systematically be implemented. And as the CDC has alerted, there are vast numbers of vulnerable Americans who are not among the elderly, but who suffer from medical conditions as widespread as obesity, cancer, kidney disease, high blood pressure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes and others. And in addition to people with prior health conditions, the CDC also points to other groups that need extra precautions: pregnant and breastfeeding women, people with disabilities, people with developmental and behavioral disorders, and others.
For a White House team that can't even properly protect its guests at a White House event, the notion that it could suddenly oversee the implementation of "focused protection" to vulnerable people spread throughout the country in the midst of an uncontrolled pandemic is a fantasy.
Third, the proponents of herd immunity seem to discount the fact that in addition to the acute and short term effects of Covid-19, there are also long-term disease consequences for many, ranging from the Covid-19 "brain fog" to long-lasting damage to many organ systems. The evidence continues to mount that Covid-19 is a frighteningly dangerous disease for many people who survive the infection and in ways that scientists are still coming to understand.
Fourth, it's especially ill-timed to let the pandemic run wild when the White House is touting a vaccine as being just around the corner. If a reliable and safe vaccine will soon be available to protect citizens, surely there is overwhelming reason not to become infected now, but rather to stay safe until the vaccine arrives.
Trump's utter ignorance has already resulted in unprecedented suffering, and the latest bad idea would gravely multiply the damage. If implemented, a herd immunity strategy might just be the most reckless action by the White House yet.
[Although an aditional problem is not addressed in Dr.Sachs' comments here, the herd-immunity approach would almost certainly extremely worsen the already disproportionate deadly effect of the virus on Black, Latinx, and Indigenous communities. Suffering would spread among all Americans; it would spread worst among those already marginalized, with least access to health care, etc. Fom the stadpoint of white supremacists, this might be a benefit, not a problem.-- AW, editor]
The Shalom Center is experiencing an important change in what has been our mostly internal process, and I want to take note of the valuable work that has characterized the nine-year tenure of Vivienne Hawkins, our Program Coordinator. She is leaving to begin a new career as a life-coach with a strong spiritual orientation.
She has been a mainstay of The Shalom Center during these nine years, a strong guarantor of the clarity and good sense of our finances and a yeoman worker under sometimes difficult circumstances in making possible our major events, like the Fiftieth-Anniversary Freedom Seder in April 2019. I greatly admire how she has carried out both those crucial responsibilities. May the spiritual work she is undertaking well meet her needs and the needs of our sorely wounded, distracted, and distorted world!
We have made arrangements to undertake the Program Coordinator work with a team of hands-on outreach workers, the Justice Gardeners, who are closely connected to the Central Reform Congregation in St. Louis, and with a financial service called the Network for Strong Communities that specializes in service to non-profits.
In traditional Jewish law, if a fetus threatens the life of the mother it is obligatory, not optional, to kill the fetus to save the life of the mother. That is exactly the opposite from “official” Roman Catholic teaching.
Now suppose I were being considered for a seat on the Supreme Court. Would it be legitimate for questioners to ask whether I held by that version of Jewish law, and whether I would impose it on Jewish or non-Jewish women against their will? Would I interpret the Constitution in accord with my deepest religious values?
By my lights the question would be totally appropriate, and not at all an invasion of my religious freedom.
(My answer would be that my understanding of evolving Torah as well as the Constitution is that pregnant women, like all other women and all other adult human beings, have moral agency: that is, they get to decide crucial moral and ethical issues about their own bodies. But notice -- I am interpreting the Constitution in accord with my own deepest ethical/ spiritual/ religious beliefs. How could I not?)
The nomination by President Trump of Amy Coney Barrett, a serious and pious Roman Catholic, to succeed Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court, has raised a number of questions about whether her religious beliefs -- as the particular kind of Roman Catholic that she is -- belong in any discussion of whether she should be confirmed to sit on the court.
Her supporters assert that raising such issues violates both decency and the Constitution’s prohibition of any religious test for taking office under the United States. Her opponents, quaking in their boots lest millions of Catholics condemn them for being anti-Catholic, discuss her religious beliefs only in mutters and whispers.
I doubt that either of those responses is correct.
As it happens, my new book, Dancing in God's Earthquake : The Coming Transformation of Religion, looks seriously at the past, present, and future of the strand of Catholic belief in sexuality that was codified by Augustine of Hippo. (I won’t call him a saint.) It is important to know that although the official teaching of the US Catholic bishops follows Augustine, there are many many Catholics who don’t. There is a magazine called, appropriately, Conscience, published and edited by committed Roman Catholics, which affirms that the importance of individual conscience in Catholic theology supersedes Augustine’ theory of sex.
Very well: What is his theory?
Augustine was obsessed with the attractions of sex. His sexual nerves were strung so tight as to thrum at the barest touch. He could not bear to be so lured, and so turned to revulsion. He saw the Bible’s vision of the earliest moments of human history through the eyes of that revulsion.
Augustine powerfully affected many leaders of the Christianity of his time. They must have shared much of his tightened strum of tension. Ever since, Catholic thought –and even some Protestant churches – has suggested that the mistake of Eden was sexual. According to this sexual hysteria, the sin has entered into all future humans because Adam and Eve passed it to their children through intercourse and procreation – like a permanent genetic defect carried not in the genes but by the very act of passing on the genes. Since then, a major aspect of much Catholic dogma has seen sexual pleasure or love sinful – unless it is intended to produce children.
[This painting of Adam, Eve, and Snake in Eden is by Peter Paul Rubens].
For sex is necessary to keep the human species going. So procreation -– not pleasure, not the joy of deep communion – became the only legitimate reason for sex. That meant all sexual acts not deliberately intended to procreate children are sinful: masturbation, homosexuality, the use of all means of birth control except sexual abstinence, abortion (because it ex post facto negates the sex that had produced a possible child), and even marriage for priests, the most holy bearers of Spirit -- all prohibited.
Today, a great deal of Christian thought -- and most Jewish thought -- has refused to believe that the sin of Eden –whatever it was – made sex or sexual desire or sexual pleasure in itself sinful, or that the mistake of Adam and Eve delivered that sin into all human souls and bodies.
When Protestantism and Eastern Orthodoxy affirmed that the bearer of spiritual leadership and religious wisdom could be not a single celibate man but a family – a man, a woman, and their children – it was already in body, even if not in words, asserting that sex could live in the heart of religion, not merely in its less serious followers. By insisting on male celibacy for almost all its priests and prelates, the Roman Catholic Church pursued a profoundly different worldview.
And in many countries, including the United States, the official bearer of Catholic authority – the bishops – have acted to encode this view into compulsory law. Compulsory on everyone. Not just to prohibit abortion, but to oppose the legitimacy of gay and lesbian marriage, to give an employer’s claimed religious objection to birth control much heavier weight over his workers’ own religious consciences if they choose effective birth control.
I realize that the abortion debate is often framed not in this theology of sex but as “the right of the fetus to life.” But if that were all, why is opposition to birth control and gay and lesbian sex and marriage on the Catholic agenda? Why is not the life of the fetus weighed along with the lives of women who die from illegal abortions where abortions have been outlawed? Why is ”life” not taken into account in regard to the tortured lives and deaths of fetuses who have incurable biological defects and whose mothers want to save them from impossible pain? Why not focus on the last trimester of pregnancy, when the fetus is more likely viable, when Roe v. Wade held there might be some limits on the woman’s agency?
Why should Judge Barrett not be asked what her Catholicism means? Augustine or Conscience magazine?
There are other questions she should face: her appointment so close to an election that millions have already voted. Her views on government’s role in protecting workers, healing the sick, welcoming refugees, empowering the poor, controlling guns and nuclear weapons, and healing our wounded Earth (all subjects of other strands of Roman Catholic theology -- more concerned with calming human suffering than with punishing sex). Does Judge Barrett affirm or ignore those threads?
And all while keeping in mind the aphorism of Congressman Jamie Raskin when he was still a member of Maryland’s legislature: “We swear an oath upon the Bible to uphold the Constitution, not an oath upon the Constitution to obey the Bible.”
Shalom, salaam, paz, peace, namaste! -- Arthur
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If sex was not "the original sin," what was the real misdeed that the parable of Eden tried to teach us to prevent? And how do other ancient tales change meaning as we live through the earthquakes of today? Rabbi Waskow’s newest book is Dancing in God's Earthquake: The Coming Transformation of Religion. Write Office@theshalomcenter.orgto receive personally inscribed books. Otherwise order at Orbis Books, 1-800-258-5838. He calls it the “harvest of all my life-experience – and like a harvest, it draws on the past but to feed the future.”
To help The Shalom Center keep working from the root of Spirit to heal our country’s and Earth’s deep wounds, please click the “Contribute” button just belowon the left-hand margin.
Dear friends, Sixty of you have already enjoyed direct conversations with me and with my book Dancing in God’s Earthquake: The Coming Transformation of Religion, which has now been published. Twenty-five feels to me the limit for a really rich conversation. So I have scheduled a new series of three conversations, on Tuesday evenings October 13, 20, and 27 from 7 pm Eastern to 8:30. The three sessions are a unity. You can register at
I will meet with clergy, spiritual leaders, and other religiously involved and alert people from any and all communities. Now that the book actually exists and we have actual copies, I will send you the book ahead of time – free, and personally inscribed to you from me. Each session will be recorded and made available to registrants in case they need to miss a session.
I am sharing with you some of the endorsements of the book :
“A wonderful book! Before the hierarchies and divisions of religions, there was the all-inclusive circle of spirituality. In Dancing in God’s Earthquake, Rabbi Arthur Waskow helps us trace our path back to our spiritual home.” –Gloria Steinem
“Rabbi Waskow calls each of us to reach down deep in our moral and religious traditions and have a grownup conversation about the response our present crisis requires. I'm glad to lift up this invitation for all to join the divine dance of love and justice.” –William J. Barber, II, President of Repairers of the Breach and Co-Chair of the Poor People's Campaign
“Like poetry on a cold day, this book warms the heart and mind both. A fierce look at religion, a willingness to question history, to see the connections between the world’s faiths, to suggest how we might move forward from today’s hard times.”—Ruth Messinger, American Jewish World Service
“We are in a moment of great crises and gathering travail, and so one thing we need to learn is how to steadily, joyfully, determinedly pass through these trials, not just intact, but in love with the world around us. There could be no better guide than Arthur Waskow.”—Bill McKibben, author, Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out
“This is a delightful and refreshing book, full of wit, wisdom, and hope--all of which we so desperately need amid the perpetual upheaval and crisis of the world today. I'm deeply thankful for both Arthur and this book.”—Jim Wallis, Founder and President of Sojourners
“The Jewish people's most revolutionary theologian is at it again, trying to waken us out of our moral slumber, before it is too late. The ancient prophet said: ‘A lion roars? Who will not fear?’ Waskow is our roaring lion.” –Rabbi Arthur Green, Rector of Rabbinical School at Hebrew College, author, Judaism for the World "
"Rabbi Arthur Waskow brings his many years of activism, thought, and creativity to bear on the most important question of our time: how do we respond to cataclysmic change? How do we shift the patterns of the past rather than cling to them as they unravel? He re-tools the myths of the Bible to counter racism, sexism, homophobia, fascism, and denial of ecological truth, and concludes that religion today must regard these as sins and resist them by developing new stories and commandments. Waskow, who has made a career of fearless truth-telling, is not afraid to liberate the stories of the Bible from their context in an ancient hierarchical society and re-frame them for our own cataclysmic moment.-- Rabbi Jill Hammer, author of The Jewish Book of Days: A Companion for All Seasons
There are also a number of other endorsements that you will see in the book itself. They include Rabbi Jonah Pesner, Marge Piercy, Imam Al-Hajj Talib Abdur-Rashid, and other notables from the Christian and Muslim worlds. And I can tell you that these endorsements follow from people having insisted on reading the entire book before they wrote their comments.
I look forward to having a conversation with you about the book, and with the book about our lives. -- I see the book as a harvest of my whole life experience in religious commitment, spiritual delight, and social transformation. Many people look on a “harvest” as a product of past sowing and growing. But I see this book as what a harvest is really supposed to be – food for the future. Here is where to sign up:
Dear friends, I received an email yesterday that asked, “With the President sick, what are you praying for? For him to get well quickly, or that he be disabled and all his ill deeds stop?”
I thought a while, trying to plumb my deepest feelings. This is what came: I am praying for his spiritual recovery. Praying for what in Hebrew we call “tshuvah,” “turning,” repentance. Not just emotional change, but action too.
This is what I pray for, to hear from a hospital bed at Walter Reed. Shalom, Arthur
“I was wrong. What I spoke was wrong [cough], what I did was wrong.
“I thought my shouts and my sneers could outshout the virus. I was wrong. That itty-bitty thing, so small I can’t even see it, and it laid me low. [cough cough]
“No mask, no distancing. I thought that would make me more [cough cough] imposing, more powerful [cough]. Maybe with people they did; not with the virus. Every time I opened my mouth to shout or sneer, people quailed and the virus [cough] flew right in.
“And it’s not just the virus. It’s the CO2. The California Fires, the mid-West floods, the more I sneer at the climate hoax [cough cough cough cough], the worse they get. The fires and floods for the country, they’re like the virus inside of me. [cough]
“And that debate. The more I yelled, the tougher the nasty press and some of my own supporters got. It’s not working with them, either.
"[Cough cough silence] I can hardly breathe. Funny. Me and those black guys. Who’d have thought? Maybe ----
“The nurse -- when I tell her what to do, even when I shout, she smiles at me and does something different. Usually feels much better. If shouting doesn't work any more, maybe what I need [cough] is people who know how to help. Not just do [cough cough] whatever I tell them.
"Maybe I need to pull. Back. From the whole thing. This whole campaign is about yelling. Maybe just stop campaigning. [c-c-coug [silence]h cough cough cough]. Can't. Breathe. I. Need. Help. Nurse! “
What must you do? Connect what you see with your eyes
To what you do with your hands.
Look with joy and respect On the threads of connection That you tie as fringes On the edges of your self. Smooth Mountains of Power Into valleys of abundance. Turn to sun and My Wind To empower my people. Make My breath amidst you A Hurricane of justice —
Then the grass will grow, The forests will flourish, And all life will weave the future in fullness. Then eysh and mayim, Will join in shamayim: Fire and water, No longer in battle, Will each find its place In the balance of Earth: The heavens will clear And your lives will be lived in heavenly joy
From A Prayer in a Time of Planetary Danger by Rabbi Arthur Waskow
Introduction
Full moon, full harvest, full hearts. As the moon of Tishri draws to fullness, we are ready to celebrate Sukkot – the Festival of Huts. We have experienced the moment of rebirth, the rediscovery of our true identity, the re-examination of our selves, the return to our true path – at Rosh Hashanah, the moment of the new moon. We have experienced the moment of intense contact and reconciliation with God at Yom Kippur, in the swelling of the moon. And now at the full moon we celebrate Sukkot – the festival of fulfillment, of gathering in the benefits that flow from repentance and forgiveness. The harvest that takes the form of joy and shalom, harmony, in the world.
Rabbi Arthur Waskow, Seasons of Our Joy
And yet, in the midst of joy, through the open spaces in the walls of our Sukkah we hear the cries those most vulnerable among us, of Mother Earth wounded and burning, of all of creation. The festivals are the offspring of a love affair between the Jewish People and Earth. Now Mother Earth is badly wounded, and many human beings suffer from poverty, racism, war and war-like policing. Earth and Humanity need the healing help of their children the festivals. Earth and Humanity need the healing help of their children the festivals.
Photo by Alexis Antonio, www.unsplash.com
Opening Blessings and Rituals Air: Sacred Breath, Sacred Name
Moses heard that Name, “YHWH,” at the Burning Bush. In biblical writing it is not replaced by “Adonai, Lord,” and rarely connected with “Melekh, King“. Those were substitutions made by Rabbinic Judaism.
The Name never had vowels, and so was not “Yahweh,” nor”Yahovah.” If one tries to pronounce it, what comes is simply a Breath. Its brilliance as a Name of God is that It alone, Breathing alone, is “spoken” in every human tongue. All the myriad names of God have breath as their root and nurture. And not only human languages – but also every grass and tree, every frog and leopard. The interbreathing of oxygen and CO2 between animals and vegetation is what keeps all Earthly life alive.
As the Siddur teaches, “Nishmat kol chai tivarekh et-shimcha, YHWH elohenu -- The Breath of all life praises your Name, Yahhhh our God” because the Name is the Breath of all life. In that phrase, “our God” does not mean the Jews’ God, nor the humans’ God – but the God of all living, breathing beings.
And in our era, when the entire web of life on Earth is threatened by the insistence of some human Carbon Pharaohs on choking us with more CO2 than all the trees and grasses can transmute to oxygen, what we call the “climate crisis” is a crisis in the very Name of God.
Naming God as “the Interbreathing Spirit of the world, Ruach Ha’Olam” is to see each being as unique, all interwoven into Echad, the One. No “Melekh,” no ruler, no subjugator.
-- Rabbi Arthur Waskow, Dancing in God’s Earthquake
Air: Sacred Breath, Sacred Name
Draw gathered community into Echad Oneness by connecting with the Interbreathing Spirit of the World. Blow the Shofar to awaken our hearts and souls
Click here for the video of Rabbi Randy Fleisher leading us to sing together: Strong Wind, Deep Water :
Strong wind, deep water, tall trees, warm fire I can feel it in my body. I can feel it in my soul. Heya, heya, heya, heya, heya, heya, heya,ho Heya, heya, heya, heya, heya, heya, heya,ho
Adamah V’shamayim, Chom Ha’esh, Tzlil hamayim Ani margish zot begufi, beruchi, benishmati. Heya, heya, heya, heya, heya, heya, heya,ho Heya, heya, heya, heya, heya, heya, heya,ho
Fire: Light Sacred Fire
A Prayer for Lighting Candles of Commitment. All recite in unison
We are the generation that stands between the fires: Behind us the flame and smoke that rose from Auschwitz and from Hiroshima; From the burning forests of the Amazon, From the hottest years of human history
that bring upon us Melted ice fields, Flooded cities, Scorching droughts. Before us the nightmare of a Flood of Fire, The heat and smoke that could consume all Earth. The rainbow in our many-colored faces.
Photo by Mike Labrum, unsplash.com
It is our task to make from fire not an all-consuming blaze, Not fire and fury, But the light in which we see each other fully. All of us different, All of us bearing
One Spark. We light these fires to see more clearly That the Earth and all who live as part of it Are not for burning. We light these fires to see more clearly
BlessedareYou,InterbreathingSpiritoftheworld,Sourceofallcreation,Who calls us into holiness through making connections with each other, and Who connects us by kindling the lights of this festival, Sukkot.
Light candles of commitment and joy
Photo by Jeff Sukoff, unsplash.com
Water: Libation Ceremony Honoring the Ushpizin Ancestors in the Sukkah
The Temple ceremonies for Sukkot included a ritual that is not mentioned in the Torah: the water pouring, which became the focus of the joy that the Torah commands for Sukkot. Both water and wine were offered in this ceremony; water being the offering that every Israelite, no matter how poor, could bring.
– Rabbi Arthur Waskow, Seasons of Our Joy
Libation offerings have been part of many religious traditions throughout time including today. Many cultures honor and remember ancestors by pouring libation, that meaning has been added here as we joyfully invite ancestors to join us in the sukkah.
In these times, when we acutely feel the descending darkness of our national climate, remembering our ancestors infuses us with power to kindle our own light of love. Their memory emboldens us to speak our authentic truth, to unleash our power and strength, to live and act in audacious hope so that we can rebuild this world in love.
– Karen Flotte, Remembering our Ancestors Transformation and Hope
Photo by Chris Abney, unsplash.com
Water: Libation Ceremony Honoring the Ushpizin (Sacred Guests) in the Sukkah
These last days and months the losses seem immeasurable, incomprehensible. Each one a light, a teacher carrying a unique lesson into this world. In two months we lost two great lights of the American People, Congressman John Lewis on July 17 and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg hours before Erev Rosh Hashanah on September 18. Before we invite the Ushpizin into our sukkah, let us pause to remember Congressman Lewis and Justice Ginsburg. Add to their names those who you can no longer touch but who have touched your life deeply. Light a Yarzheit Candle
What is the candle we kindle here, The fires we light? We among all life-forms face the nightmare of a Flood of Fire The heat and smoke that could consume all Earth. We come to douse that outer all-consuming fire. We must light again in our own hearts
the inner fire of love and liberation that burned in the Burning Bush -- The fire that did not destroy the Bush it burned in -- As that inner fire burned in the heart of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Lewis -- The fire that did not destroy but loved and liberated Loved and liberated women and men; Loved and liberated Black women and men denied the right to vote;
Sought to love and liberate us all. Both became a great light of the American people, Calling forth the fire within us, Each of us and all of us, Our fire of love and liberation. For that love is strong as death -- Love’s Fire must never be extinguished: The fire in the heart of all Creation. It is our task to make from inner fire Not an all-consuming blaze But these loving lights we kindle now
in which we see more clearly The Rainbow Covenant glowing in the many-colored faces of all life.
Adapted from Erev Rosh Hashanah Candle Lighting, Rabbi Arthur Waskow
Water: Libation Ceremony honoring the Ushpizin (Sacred Guests) in the Sukkah
Invite the Ushpizin to Your Sukkah
Pass a pitcher of water and beautiful vessel. Each person invites one of the martyrs and heroes for voting rights throughout our history, using the words below and then reading the description from the The Shalom Center’s Ushpizin posters and pouring a libation from the pitcher into the vessel
“I invite to this meal the exalted guest, (Name and Description on the poster) Ruth Bader Ginsburg
John Lewis James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner Heather Booth Charles McDew, Fannie Lou Hamer, Bob Moses Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Roy Wilkins, A. Philip Randolph, Arnold Aronson Ida B. Wells, Rosika Schwimmer
Earth: Blessings for the Sukkah and Bensching the Lulav
Bensching the Lulav “What is going on in the waving? There are many possibilities of spiritual approach:
Close your eyes as you wave. Focus on the rustling sound of the lulav and the smell of the etrog. Let them become your branches and your fruit, so that you are the four-in-one tree whose fruit and branches are waving in the wind. You. Are. The. Tree. The. Tree. Of. Life, which according to tradition is whet the Torah is. A human being living a decent, holy life becomes a Torah, a Tree of Life. Such a person becomes an organic part of the natural world, a microcosm of the universe.
As you wave, be conscious that you are pulling all outward six directions of the universe toward you, the seventh direction -- the inner direction and for a moment the very center of all the worlds. They all are depending on your internal clarity and unity.
The four species represent the four letters of the Name. The etrog looks like a yod; the soft and curving myrtle like a hay; the tall and springy palm branch like a vav; the soft and curving will like a hay. The bringing together of of the right and left hands unifies the Name. It is spelled in the right order only for someone facing you. God? Your friends and comrades? Those who are not yet conscious of the Unity, since Sukkot is the moment when God’s Name will become One to all who live on earth?)
And each new experience with waving lulav may lead to a new sense of what is going on.” Rabbi Arthur Waskow, Seasons of Our Joy
Earth: Blessings for the Sukkah and Bensching the Lulav
Take up the lulav and etrog.
Wave the lulav and etrog, in the seven directions --- six outward – Left, Right, Front, Back, Up, Down – each time bringing the lulav inward to touchyourheart-- theseventhdirection,accompaniedbyblessings.
Say: Maymythoughtsbeholy,intokenoftheabundanceofblessing that is mine from heaven and earth. With these fourspecies, I reach out to the Interbreathing Spirit of all Life, whose Presence is with us in all directions and all ways.
Wave the species in the seven directions and recite the blessing, first in masculine, then feminine.
Bruchah At Yah Eloheynu ruach haolam asher kid'shatnu b'mitzvot v'tzivatnu al n'tilat lulav.
Blessed are you, Yah, Breath of Life, who makes us holy us with Your commandments [or “connections”] and has enjoined upon us the mitzvah of the lulav.
Earth: Blessings for the Sukkah and Bensching the Lulav
Blessing for Being in the Sukkah:
Eternal God spread over us sukkat shlomekha, your sheltering peace. Surround us with your radiance and open our hearts that we may feel your abundance. Let there be food and drink for all who hunger and thirst.
Blessed are You, Yah, Breath of Life, creator of the fruit of the vine.
Blessing Over the Bread
Baruch Atah Yah Eloheinu ruach ha’olam, hamotzi lechem min ha’aretz.
Blessed are You, Yah, Breath of Life, who has brought forth bread from the earth.
After Meal Song of Praise: Psalmish
Written at the beginning of sheltering in place this year, Rabbi Randy Fleisher was hoping to find solace in the Psalms and found they contained beautiful poetry about so much of what he treasures in creation-nature, music, and sacred gatherings-but they were wrapped in an ancient theology that did not resonate with him. So, he wrote something like a Psalm, one he could sing with integrity, and called it a Psalmish. It was also inspired by Reb Zalman Schacter-Shalomi of blessed memory, a great teacher of Rabbi Randy’s as well as many others. Randy remembered the first time he saw Reb Zalman lead davening, he sang the 150th Psalm to the tune of ”Michael Row the Boat Ashore” which is perfection because the last Hebrew word in the Psalm (and therefore the last word in the entire book of Tehillim) is also the refrain of “Michael Row”–Hallelujah-praise the Breath of all life!
(lyrics and video on next page)
Photo by David Clode, unsplash.com
Psalmish
Words by Rabbi Randy Fleisher Sung to Michael Row the Boat Ashore
Praise Yah for the mountains high. Praise Yah for the ocean tides. Praise Yah, dense forests of trees. Praise Yah, deserts, valleys. Praise Yah thunderous waterfalls. Praise Yah creatures large and small. Prasie Yah promise of sunrise.
Praise Yah sunsets then the stars. Praise Yah for dance and song. Praise Yah strings, flute and horn. Praise Yah for drumming that resounds.
Praise Yah joyful noises that rebound. Praise Yah for folks of every kind. Praise Yah hearts souls and minds. Praise Yah speaking truth to power. Praise Yah letting our best selves flower. Praise Yah vision over visibility.
Praise Yah in Oneness we believe. Praise Yah arms open wide. Praise Yah Beloved gatherings every size. Let every soul and voice give thanks and praise. Kol HaNeshamah Tehalel Yah. With every breath we renew our awe. Kol HaNeshamah Tehalel Yah.
Texts, Teaching, Reflection and Discussion Grow the Vote! Green the Vote!
There are many values hidden in the Sukkot festival that may only show up when you need them. One is hidden in plain sight: Because both Sukkot and the dates of major U.S. elections are connected with the Harvest, Sukkot in every national election year always comes several weeks before the election. The festival can be a period of spiritual, emotional, and intellectual preparation for voting.
If the religious communities of America are serious about our deepest spiritual teachings of the profound worth of every human being and every species, Growing the Vote is crucial. For Jews, sharing Sukkot (the festival from the evening of October 2 to the evening of October 9) and its profound teachings with the “seventy nations of the world” and drawing on its wisdom to Grow the Vote is crucial. In our lives, that includes making sure the poor, the disabled, the young and the old get to vote.
In the midst of the pandemic, do we have a clear understanding of all the ways that we can vote safely?
Are we in a position to assist in getting information out about how to vote?
How can we develop strategies as individuals and as a group to support all the ways people can vote and vote
safely? You can find our guide here.
Grow the Vote! Green the Vote!
The sukkah is a home for the homeless. Torah says that sukkot were the first homes of the Exodus band of runaway slaves – refugees – who created a community of freedom. So they remind us of to learn and share the sacred practice of empowering disempowered and marginal people, especially refugees from despotic and violent power. So Sukkot affirms the value of protection for refugees an important issue in the upcoming election
Sukkot’s relationship to the fall harvest strengthens its connection with Earth. And the sukkah is open to our Mother Earth, reminding us to heal her from the wounds of modern Carbon Pharaohs.
The elections offer us the chance to cry out when it matters. If we stay silent now, the Carbon Pharaohs will do their best – their worst -- to control the next Administration, no matter who wins. Incremental steps are not enough. If we are standing at the edge of a precipice, incremental steps will just plunge us into the abyss of death. We must leap into a new society, as our forebears crossed the Red Sea.
Grow the Vote! Green the Vote!
Action strategies:
Write two newspapers a letter to the editor. One to your biggest metropolitan paper. One to a communal paper. Maybe your Jewish paper. Or your neighborhood paper. Or your congregational newsletter. Say this: “The West is afire. The climate crisis is no hoax. I demand that the candidates for President and our local candidates for House and Senate (name the ones you mean) speak NOW on what they will do to face the climate crisis. A program.”
Call your local Presidential and Senatorial campaign offices and say the same thing. Call them once a day. Ask your friends to call. Share this letter with them.
Grow the Vote! Green the Vote!
Evaluate all candidates – local, state, federal -- using these questions, share your thoughts with others:
How do candidates plan to address the systemic racism that pervades U.S. law enforcement agencies, especially the police?
What measures will the candidate take to protect Native American lands from exploitation by the fossil fuel industry?
How will the candidate work with community groups to reduce the pollution that disproportionately impacts communities of color?
What is the candidate’s plan to address the inequities in our public education system that disadvantage students of color?
What is the candidate’s position on raising the minimum wage to a living wage?
What are the candidate’s plans to reform our criminal justice system which criminalizes people
of color and incarcerates them at rates much higher than their percentage of the population?
Grow the Vote! Green the Vote!
More questions for evaluating all candidates – local, state, federal-- on the environment:
What has the candidate said about policies/programs needed for the protection of our land, water and air?
What has the candidate said about oil and gas drilling on land and in the water? What protections has the candidate advocated for?
What has the candidate said about the Paris Climate Agreement? Would the candidate support the US re- entering the Agreement? If so, what action would the candidate take?
What has the candidate said about strengthening and supporting the Environmental Protection Agency to protect and promote clean air, clean water, and renewable energy?
There is an ancient tradition that Sukkot celebrates the harvest of abundance and justice not for Jews alone but for all “the 70 nations” of the world.” So Sukkot represents a commitment to a loving relationship for all nations with all Earth. The sukkah itself – a fragile hut with a leafy, leaky roof – is the house of the poor just as matzah is the bread of the poor. The tradition of inviting Ushpizin into the Sukkah includes inviting guests from those most vulnerable in our community. The intersection of the climate crisis, racism and inequality is having cataclysmic impacts on those most vulnerable among us. Through the open spaces in the walls of our Sukkah we hear their cries, their demand for justice. We open our hearts and souls with compassion.
Rapidly rising rates of hunger in this nation were heartbreaking before the pandemic. Recent images of cars lined up for miles at food pantries tell the story of parents and grandparents stretched beyond imagination to provide for theirfamilies. Foodpantriesarescramblingtomeetthesefamilies’nutritionalneeds,especiallyfreshfruitsand vegetables so essential to support growing bodies and strong minds for learning.
Justice Gardeners, a new movement emerging in St. Louis has a powerful vision to address economic, inclusion and environmental justice through faith based communal gardening for those that are most vulnerable in our communities.
Drawing on their experience leading The CRC Mitzvah Farm which produces Justice Gardeners leaders have created a communal garden model which is easily replicated, focused on relationship, grows food determined by the pantry guests and builds communities seeking justice. They have trained and mentored 12 other gardens in the region. With a small budget, small group of volunteers and a small plot of land can have a significant impact on food security, biodiversity and building community. For example, the CRC Mitzvah Farm, produces 1,500 pounds of organic produce to families’ dinner tables each year. Imagine the impact if 50, 100, or even 1,000 places were growing organic food for those facing food security and healing the earth?
Can you imagine this happening in your own community? Does your community or synagogue have access to :
Justice Gardeners envisions a world where gardens become spaces of resistance in which communities reclaim their sacred interconnectedness, nourish body and soul, respond to community concerns, and build resilient, sustainable communities with love. Join this nascent movement.
Justice Gardeners provides free training and mentoring to develop your own Justice Gardener team. Please visit www.JusticeGardeners.org to dream and sign up for our October and November online seminars.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful for the creative contributions of the following friends of The Shalom Center for this Seder:
Rabbi Randy Fleisher of Central Reform Congregation in St. Louis, MO for lending us Psalmish and for creating video recordings of the music.
Sheila Daly for producing the Zoom ready Powerpoint presentation.
Susala Kay, one of the founders and stewards of JeWitch Collective and JeWitch Camp, and Karen Flotte for lending us the framework for the Beginning Rituals and Blessings from their work, Food Justice Sukkot Ritual.
And especially Karen Flotte, for weaving this Sukkot Seder together.
Rabbi Arthur Waskow’s newest book Dancing in God's Earthquake: The Coming Transformation of Religion is now available!
Gloria Steinem calls it, “A wonderful book! Before the hierarchies and divisions of religions, there was the all-inclusive circle of spirituality. In Dancing in God’s Earthquake, Rabbi Arthur Waskow helps us trace our path back to our spiritual home.”
For an inscribed book, write him at The Shalom Center. Otherwise, order at Orbis, 1-800-258-5838). He calls this book the “harvest of my whole life-experience – and like a harvest, intended not only to draw on the past but to feed the future.”
