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Occupation 50

Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on

“Israel” is the Name of a People Also.

It means We Wrestle even God –-

Are we Allowed to Wrestle with the State?

This week marks the 50th  anniversary of the Israeli Occupation of the only land –- the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem -- where an independent and peaceful State of Palestine could arise to live alongside Israel.

In facing this moment, I also face my own long struggle with the Occupation since 1969 -– just a few months after my first serious engagement with Judaism, through creating the original Freedom Seder.  That summer, for the first time I visited Israel and for the first time met with Palestinians. I came home clear that we needed to end the Occupation and make peace possible between Palestine and Israel.

And I cannot avoid facing the fact that twice in my life I have been pushed out of working for presumably liberal Jewish institutions because I criticized the Occupation.   So I am especially sensitive to the ways in which establishment Jewish organizations today are trying to enforce Jewish support for the Occupation and an increasingly right-wing, repressive Israeli government, by punishing those who criticize it.

 

The Occupation makes utterly clear the knife edge between winning one’s own freedom —  winning for one’s self  enough empowerment to assert and protect that freedom — and letting the hunger for empowerment became an addiction to power — power that becomes the subjugation that  destroys the freedom of another. It is all too easy for human beings to move from one side of that knife edge to the other. 

 

The danger afflicts not only Israelis but us all. Notice how many of those  Americans who voted for Trump to win their own freedom from economic disemployment and cultural marginalization crossed that edge  into trying to subjugate others — immigrants, Muslims, Blacks, independent-minded women among them. 

 

Realizing how easy is the slop-over and how hard it is to balance on the edge of the knife should  call us not to the complicity of silence but to the caring of compassionate rebuke, challenge, opposition.

As this 50th anniversary approached, I wrote two essays not only on the meaning of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict itself, but even more about its impact on the American Jewish community. .

One of them, “Atzma’ut 69, Occupation 50: Does That Add Up?” has just been published in a special issue of Tikkun magazine. My article is available at

<https://theshalomcenter.org/content/atzmaut-69-occupation-50-does-add-0>.

The whole issue is valuable, and I encourage you to buy it. Click to --

 <http://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/spring-2017>

My article begins this way:

For Israel, this summer marks the 50th anniversary (June 10, 2017) of the end of the Six-Day War and the beginning of the Israeli Occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza.

And that historical marker quickly follows another one: the 69th anniversary of Israel’s statehood, commemorated by Israelis as Yom Ha'Atzma'ut (May 1 and 2).

Yom Ha'Atzma'ut is usually translated as "Israeli Independence Day." That English word means “not hanging on.” But the Hebrew would be more accurately translated as "Day for Standing on One's Own Feet, Day of Affirming One's Own Essence" (Etzem, the linguistic root of “atzma’ut,”  means “bone, skeleton, internal essential structure.”)

From that deeper perspective, the 50th anniversary of the Occupation casts a deep pall of doubt upon the 69th birthday of the State. Has Israel really been independently “standing on its own feet” or has it for five-sevenths of its history been simultaneously standing in military boots on a subjugated people and depending (not “independing”) on the military and money support of the United States government to do so? 

My essay looks into the moral and spiritual meaning of the Occupation in the light of Torah.

  • What is our own Atzma’ut, our own essence, the feet on which we might hope to stand?  
  • Is it possible to have compassion both for Israeli Jews traumatically imprisoned in the history of their own abuse and in the fear of continuing attacks,  as well as for Palestinians caught in the torment of being abused right now?
  • What does it mean that Israel – the word means "Godwrestler"  -- is the name of a People also, not only the State? When we face the State that is no longer wrestling God and history by struggling toward an ethic of justice, must the Godwrestling People take up that task?

And I also wrote an essay, published by the Forward, which is available under the title “A Tale of two Hillels,” at

<https://theshalomcenter.org/content/tale-two-hillels>

That one focuses on what the Occupation is doing to American Jewish life, where some “official” organizations are trying to occupy and subjugate the minds of American Jews, forbidding serious criticism of the State of Israel.

It looks especially at how Hillel International has banned from campus Hillel buildings any deep critique of Israel  -- shoving away from Jewish life precisely the most exploratory and creative young Jews at precisely the time of life they are likeliest to choose or shun Judaism.


In both essays, I take as central the question, When and how may admiration or love for the State of Israel become idolatry?

I suggest that prohibiting criticism of any institution is precisely what makes it not lovable, not admirable, but an idol.

And I recall that Psalms 115 and 135 warn that those who make or put their trust in idols become like them –-  dead.


And yet –- 48 years after I called out the need for peace between Israel and Palestine, there is still an Israeli military Occupation of  Palestine, now much more brutal and much more self-corrupting than it was 48 years ago. And much more both threatening to and inspiring of Jewish creativity in America --  already forcing many Jews to think anew and far more deeply about their relationship to the State that calls itself Jewish.

So at this moment I cannot hold my tongue, even though I continue to believe that our most urgent task as Jews, Americans, and human beings is to heal the Earth, including all humanity, from impending climate chaos.

In my two recent articles, I not only explore the present conflict from a transformative-Torah perspective, but suggest how to shape a path forward. I welcome your comments – either on our Website or in reply to this letter.

Oseh shalom bimromav, hu yaaseh shalom alenu – v’al kol Yisrael, v’al kol Yishmael, v’al kol yoshvei tevel.

May the One Who makes harmony in the ultimate reaches of the universe teach us to make peace within our selves, among our selves, for the Godwrestling Children of Israel, for the God-hearing Children of Ishmael, and for all who dwell within this planet.

Ameyn selah! --  Arthur 

From the Third Day to the Song of Songs:

Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on

The Eco-Torah of an Indigenous People

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow *

On the third day, plants spring up all around the Earth (Gen 1: 11-12).  As befits an indigenous community of farmers and shepherds dependent on meadow grass, wheat, barley, olives, and other fruit, the vegetation of this day becomes the seed of the second story of Creation – – the story of Eden.

Trump Makes CO2 a Weapon of Mass Destruction in War against Us All

Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on

Chooses CO2 as his Weapon of Mass Destruction

By quitting the Paris Climate Accord, the Trump regime has issued a formal Declaration of War against our children and grandchildren and thousands of species that global scorching will drive toward extinction.

The Trump regime will use CO2 as its chosen chemical weapon of mass destruction.

Even before the formal Declaration of this War Against Life, Trump had already taken major steps to scorch and burn the Earth. 

These included decisions to shatter the Environmental Protection Agency, to scuttle the Clean Power Plan, and to remove regulations that control auto emissions, keep lead out of our drinking water and mercury out of our air, and even regulations to ensure purity of food and water from disease-producing bacteria and carcinogens.

Trump’s claim that healing our climate destroys jobs is nonsense. If the US government were to decide that we face an emergency even more destructive than the Nazi conquest of Europe in 1940 and were to pour billions into wind and solar energy, millions of good jobs would appear. Instead, millions of Americans will suffer from Trump’s war through droughts, floods, superstorms, and the spread of formerly tropical diseases.

What to do? We must build a far stronger People Power movement committed to renew a climate and a planet as healthy, abundant, joyful, and life-giving for our children and grandchildren as it was for most of our parents and grandparents --- and with much more eco-social justice infusing that transformed world, to make sure all our children share in that abundance.

And where can that greater strength come from?

American religious communities are a sleepy giant of potential social transformation. We need to fully awaken them, and The Shalom Center has just begun a crucial campaign to do that. We need your help to make that campaign succeed. You can help by contributing at

<https://theshalomcenter.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=1>

Here is what we are doing, and why:

What is mostly missing in the religious world are precisely the religious qualities that could make healing the Earth a central religious concern. Missing are the Earth-focused liturgies, sermons, ceremonies, and sacred everyday life-practices that would get deep into the guts and hearts as well as the minds and actions of people with even limited religious involvement.

So The Shalom Center has called together a meeting later this month of a small working group from diverse religious communities to develop  liturgies, sermons, and ceremonies --

for life-cycle events such as baptisms and b’nai mitzvah;

for festivals such as Holy Week, Passover, and Eid al Fitr;

for weekly celebrations of Jumat, Shabbat, or the Sabbath;

and to encourage sacred daily practices –-  for instance, congregants gathering in solar-energy co-ops, or reshaping their transportation habits to enhance the Earth instead of wounding it.

Our June meeting is off to an excellent start. We have received the funds necessary to support our staff to work on this, and to cover travel and a 1 ½-day stay at a retreat center.

Then begins the crucial challenge. We need to raise $35,000 to turn the ideas and plans emerging from our June gathering into the outreach that can fully awaken religious communities into a real movement.

Without vision, the people perish.

Without a grounding in daily, weekly, monthly spiritual experience, folks forget.

Through your membership and readership in The Shalom Center, you have shown that you get the need and urgency. With this new multi-religious project, we are positioned to make a major difference. Your help is essential to make it real. We ask you to make a special contribution, beyond what you have been giving to support our usual work.

I want to be clear that this is not just for everyday expenses. You are being offered the opportunity to do the ultimate act of giving life: awaken the communities that could actually generate the power to save and heal our Mother Earth --  our common home, as Pope Francis pointed out. The home our children and grandchildren will live in joyfully –-- or suffer and die in.

Please click on the maroon Contribute banner in the left-hand margin of this page.

Every gift will help. We ask you to consider a range between $180 and $1800.

Many thanks!

Shalom, salaam, peace, Earth!  --  Arthur

The Torah vs. Jared Kushner

Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on

Tonight we enter the festival that has come to mean standing again, each year, at Sinai. What does it mean for us to do this seriously, taking Torah deep into our lives, challenging ourselves to live by its deepest teachings?

What would it mean to bring Torah to bear on one rich, powerful, and unjust Jew –- Jared Kushner?

 

The New York Times Magazine of May 28 featured an article entitled “Jared Kushner’s Other Real Estate Empire.”  It describes in stomach-turning detail how Kushner’s real-estate firm, using several shell companies to hide its ownership from public view, has become an oppressor of the poor.

 

His companies have used false and brutal behavior toward low-income people who are tenants and even former tenants of the Kushner-owned properties, to extract money from them that in fact they don’t owe, ruining their families and their lives. 

 

Since they can’t afford the lawyers who could defend them, they sink deeper and deeper into debt, disaster, and despair.

 

Ten Days, Four Festivals

Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on


Ramadan, Memorial Day, Shavuot, Pentecost:

Are We Open to the Challenges they Pose?

We are approaching four Festivals:

The month of Ramadan begins this Friday evening, It is sacred to Muslims as a time of inner spiritual attunement and of fasting from dawn to sunset to intensify that focus.  In its midst comes the Night of Power, recalling the moment when the Revelation of the Holy Quran came to the Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him.

The Jewish festival of Shavuot (beginning Tuesday night) was lifted up in the biblical Earth-based tradition as a celebration of the spring wheat harvest. For the Rabbis, bereft of connection to any specific land, it became a celebration of harvesting Words instead of Wheat: a celebration of the Revelation of Torah at Mount Sinai.

Long ago, Jewish tradition added the reading of the Book of Ruth as an important part of celebration of the Giving of Torah. In that book, an outsider – a foreigner from a despised nation, penniless, an immigrant, a woman bereft of the social norm of  a male protector – is welcomed to glean a livelihood by literally gleaning grain from the fields held by a wealthy man, Boaz.

The Torah requires that she be supported in that way, since the land itself can be held by a person but is really “owned” only by the Divine Breath of Life, the Interbreathing Spirit of the world. And that Breath of Life that freed the people from slavery insists that no one be left bereft and starving.

Ruth goes beyond all sexual conventions by initiating a relationship with the land-holder; he responds to her by offering marriage. Together, the story says, they become the ancestors of King David and therefore, mythically, the forebears of the Messiah. The teaching of the Harvest becomes simultaneously physical—the gathering of wheat and of sexual union;  social – the gathering of justice and compassion; and theological – the welcoming of an outsider into the heart of Torah’s future.

On Monday, in the United States we honor the dead of many wars through Memorial Day. The custom began in the bloodshed and heartbreak of the Civil War, which became the War to End Slavery. Despite the ambiguities

Atzma’ut 69, Occupation 50: Does That Add Up?

Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on

For Israel, this summer marks the 50th anniversary (June 10, 2017) of the end of the Six-Day War and the beginning of the Israeli Occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza.

And that historical marker quickly follows another one: the 69th anniversary of Israel’s statehood, commemorated by Israelis as Yom Ha'Atzma'ut (May 1 and 2).

This Summer: "Prayer as if Earth Really Matters"

Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on

This summer I will be weaving a course, a conversation,  called “Prayer as if the Earth Really Matters.”  That conversation will be part of the gathering called Ruach HaAretz (“Breathing-Spirit of the Earth”) that will take place at the Stony Point retreat center an hour north of New York City, from July 10 to 16.

 You can see what this gathering will be like, and register to come,  by clicking to

<https://aleph.org/ruach-ha-aretz-2017>.

Our question will be: How do we make prayer and chant, sacred practices, and holy texts matter so as to heal our common home?

I welcome to this course spiritual seekers of all traditions who are committed to healing our wounded Mother Earth from global scorching and the climate crisis.

An equally truthful title for the course would be “Earth as if Prayer Really Matters.” Suppose prayer and chant and sacred stories were at the heart of our concern for Earth as they were half a century ago for the civil-rights movement. Would that change how we envision that Earth and Human Earthlings should live together?  How would we choose the policies we urge, the actions we take?

The Water Protectors at Standing Rock pointed the way. Perhaps the most profoundly powerful energy for protection of the Earth and of us human beings is a deep spiritual connection with the Earth embodied in prayer, dance, the chanting of stories and teachings –- some ancient, some utterly new.


The well-known data that show more and more young Americans are walking away from churches and synagogues does not mean they are walking away from religious and spiritual experience, as their response to Standing Rock shows.

They are walking away from boring automatic pretenses of religious experience.

They are walking away from reading an ancient biblical text about the urgency of letting the earth rest as if it were a dusty archive, rather than a prophetic outcry to our own generation.

But they are not walking away from the Breathing Spirit of the world, the Wind of Sacred Change.

Proclaim Restfulness throughout the Earth to all its Life-Forms

Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on

This coming Shabbat, the traditional Jewish reading of the Torah reaches chapters 25 and 26 of Leviticus.

Chapter 25 is famous, especially because the quotation on the Liberty Bell,  “Proclaim liberty throughout the land to all the inhabitants thereof," comes from that passage of Torah. It is not talking about civil liberty  -- freedom of speech and of the press. It is talking about economic freedom – – ending a period of slavery -- and freedom for the Earth from being overworked, freedom to rest.

Chapter 25 begins by asserting that the pattern of work and rest for the Earth comes straight from Sinai, like what we call the Ten Commandments. It teaches us that every seventh year, we must allow the Earth to rest fpr a full year from the work we usually do to make it bring forth the food we need to live.

We must do this because we are not in fact the owners of any plot of Earth.  Only YyyyHhhhWwwwHhhh --- the InterBreath of Life – is the “Owner" of the Earth, and the InterBreath of Life can keep on breathing only if there is time to pause, to rest. If we do, says Torah, the Earth will be even more fruitful in the years that follow.

And what if we don't allow the earth to rest? Chapter 26 teaches us that the earth will rest anyway – – on our heads. It will rest through drought and famine, flood and unheard-of superstorms, plagues of diseases in unexpected places, the exile of whole peoples in what we would now call a flood of refugees.

Chapter 26 reads as if it were written by a contemporary climate scientist,

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