This morning I received an email from a guy over at the Awakened Heart Project (AHP) telling me about their new website. I decided to check it out and WOW, I am impressed with what I saw. It’s basically an online resource with the stated aim of enhancing peoples understanding and experience of Jewish meditation and prayer.

Here is a blurb from their about page.

The mission of Awakened Heart Project is to promote the use of Jewish contemplative techniques that foster the development of a heart of wisdom and compassion. Cultivating an awakened heart leads to acting in the world with loving-kindness towards all beings recognizing them as manifestations of the Holy One of Being.

The AHP provides opportunities for a focused effort at refining contemplative Jewish practices, such as meditation and prayer, as well as creating opportunities for intensive practice.

Also here is some of what the site offers, as listed on their welcome page.

• • Regularly updated podcasts
  • Essays and articles on Jewish meditation
  • Jewish meditation events calendar
  • Meditation and contemplative Jewish resources

I haven’t spent a whole bunch of time going through these resources yet but they do look good. So I’m sure to be, a frequent visitor to this site. If your interested in the contemplative side of Judaism this site is a must see. If you don’t know anything about contemplative Judaism but are curious, this site will get you up to speed in no time, so check it out.

Technorati tags: Contemplative Judaism, Online Judaism, Jewish Meditation, The Awakened Heart Project, Jewish Audio

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Up until last week I didn’t know much about Whole Foods or its president John Mackey but with what little information I did know about the company and based on what I saw when I was in Los Angeles last fall, I was more than a little skeptical. However last week I came across an interesting video up on Google featuring none other than John Mackey himself. I watched it on the weekend and liked it so much that I watched it again this morning with breakfast.

The first hour was basically a presentation where Mackey provided a detailed overview of the company’s approach to food production, including various projects and plans for future innovations. Watching him I quickly moved from a place of skepticism into one of complete awe. I couldn’t help but think to myself that this guy whether he knows it or not, is actually working towards establishing what may well be the first comprehensive expression of Eco-Kashrut. He’s certainly way beyond anything crunchy granola Jews are trying to do. Come to think of it he’s pretty much any serious Eco-Kashrutist’s wet dream come true. Okay maybe he’s just my wet dream come true but I’m hoping I’m not alone on this one.

I’m impressed with him and his approach to business and thought he was extremely honest. He’s actually putting together a plan for implementing a new type of organic certification which I believe is a perfect example of what an eco-kosher certification process might look like.

I’m working from memory so I might get things wrong but here is the basic breakdown of this process as I remember it.

He called it something like a star system with one star for meeting the basic organic food production criteria. You know stuff like no GMO’s, no pesticides or chemical fertilizers etc. But this is the bare minimum and only gets a company one star on the certification process.

The other proposed considerations include (again that’s if my memory serves me right)

• Healthfulness of the food - as in is it healthy with vitamins, low fat etc.
• Animal welfare considerations - Are the animals being raised in a humane fashion
• Environmental considerations - what impact is food production having on the environment.
• Economics/social justice considerations - is the food being fairly traded and what our worker conditions and wages like.

Anyhow as far as I’m concerned what he’s outlining here is a near-perfect example of what Eco-Kashrut might look like in practice.

The entire video is worth watching but if you don’t want to commit an hour you can jump to about 40 minutes in because that’s where he starts laying out his plan. At bare minimum I recommend watching the last 10 minutes because he makes some excellent summarizing points.

Anyhow here it is for your viewing pleasure.

Oh also there is a part two which features a Discussion between Mackey and Michael Pollen. It is also worth checking out if you have time.

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I stumbled on to this article Saturday night and thought to myself “wow this sounds like something I just wrote“.

It’s nice to see that I am not just making this stuff up in my deluded mind. Yes indeed it seems that others are just as delude as I am and I just love synchronistic craziness.

Here is a snippet from the article for those of you who are interested in the topic!

Kashrut - rooted in the Bible, and developed by the Rabbis - is the Jewish tradition’s clearly delineated response to this challenge. Kashrut sets limits on what foods we can eat: for example, we can only eat certain (primarily domesticated) animals, and we must slaughter them in the least painful, most respectful way. The blood must be drained and buried, because the life is in the blood and must be returned to the earth. There are also prohibitions against eating shellfish, and the mixing of meat and milk products.

We felt a need to expand this traditional understanding of Kashrut to include global environmental and social issues which the Rabbis of two thousand years ago did not face. In conversation with Jewish people in many communities, we have developed the following tentative guidelines for a Kashrut which speaks to our planetary concerns.

1. We are concerned about the earth as a living being, including the soil, water, air and all the planet’s living systems. It is important to choose foods which are produced, transported and packaged in a way that is sustainable and not harmful to the earth. For us this means buying organic foods even when they cost more, and we also try to choose foods grown locally - or grow our own! This minimizes transportation and connects us to the earth’s natural cycles.

2. We are concerned not only with how animals are slaughtered, but also how they are raised. Animals are often treated as commodities, to be “manufactured” as efficiently as possible for maximum profit. The resulting “factory farms” are appalling places, filled with unspeakable suffering. Upon reading John Robbins’ description of them in Diet for A New America, we decided to avoid all animal products that have not been raised humanely and respectfully.

3. We are concerned about the health of our bodies. We are responsible for taking good care of the bodies that God has given to us. Too much food can be destructive to our systems - especially if it is full of fat and sugar. Tobacco, alcohol, caffeine and other drugs can also be harmful. We eat mostly whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables, legumes and nuts. We try to pay attention to how our bodies feel about the food we are eating and to make our meals as nourishing and pleasing as possible.

4. We are concerned about the people who produce and prepare our food. We have extended Kashrut to include concern for how the people who grow and harvest it are treated. We use our food dollars to support growers and producers who demonstrate concern for their workers (and we avoid, for example, commercially produced grapes in response to the United Farm Workers’ boycott). We also use the Council for Economic Priority’s guide Shopping For A Better World to identify and support socially responsible producers.

You can read the entire thing over here if you like.

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I wanted to do a follow-up on a post from a week or so back on Jewish arguments for adopting a vegetarian diet. I feel that my post was incomplete and may have even misrepresented what I was trying to communicate. It was after all something of a knee-jerk reaction to some pictures I saw online. That is not to say that I was upset by them but simply that I saw the images and impulsively replied with a post of my own. So before too much time passes and I completely forget about it I would like to clarify and expand on my original point.

Although my post focused on animal cruelty and vegetarianism it’s really just one part of a larger issue and is not a black and white situation. I for one do not think you have to be a vegetarian to be ethical. Although I personally feel it is the best choice (at least for me) for a couple of reasons. First by abstaining from animal products I am better able to guarantee that I am not promoting and supporting animal cruelty. Secondly by simply adopting a more plant based diet I lessen my ecological footprint which I believe allows me to be more environmentally responsible.

Although I used a PETA video in that post I am not a member nor have I ever been. I also do not agree with much of what the organization stands for. I try to work from a moral reference point that reflects both depth and span. For example I feel that it’s unnecessary to eat animal products in modern Western society. Most of the evidence seems to show that it is in fact healthier to eat a vegetarian diet. More importantly we have all sorts of veggie product alternatives readily available, so it’s no longer a question of hunting and killing to survive.

My basic moral intuition goes something like this. I need to eat to survive however whenever I can I want to do it in a way that has as little negative impact as possible. Animals are higher life forms with cognitive abilities, instincts and have highly developed central nervous systems capable of feeling pain. Plants are lower life forms with no cognitive abilities and to the best of our knowledge are not capable of feeling pain. Therefore it is better for me to eat plants than animals whenever possible as plants have less depth.

However on the other hand if conducting medical research on an animal is going to help cure my stepfather’s Parkinson’s disease, I completely support doing so. Human beings obviously have more depth than animals therefore it is a morally acceptable choice in my opinion. However I am sure many vegans would strongly disagree with me and thats OK.

Again let me reiterate that this is my own basic sense of moral intuition and I am not saying everyone else has to do it the way I do it. For me the act of adopting a plant based diet is one way a fulfilling my commitment to Eco-Kashrut but I realize that there are other ways of meeting this commitment and for some it may not be dependent upon vegetarianism.

I do think that as Jews whether we eat meat or not we have a responsibility to think about what it is that we are doing. We cannot just assume that what we are doing is truly kosher, even if there is a label on the package.

Arthur Green in his book “These Are the Words” describes Kashrut as the following.

Kashrut literally means “fitness,” referring in this case to fitness for eating, though the term is also used in many other areas of Halakah. Kosher (or Kasher in the Sephardic and modern Hebrew pronunciation) means “fit” to be eaten or used to prepare food.

Industrialization has made food both abundant and cheap but it has come at an expense. We have for the most part removed ourselves from the process so much so that we no longer even know what it is that we are eating. We no longer can claim to know what impacts the food we consume is having on the environment, how animals are being raised or even on our own health.

I will not go into cruelty issues here but I am going to suggest that the traditional Kashrut system does not take into account many of the new realities of food production. But because of this I (and many others) believe  it is now essential that we add a new set of criteria to the Kashrut equation, in order to meet the needs of the 21st century. For example Kashrut has no way of dealing with GMO’s and I doubt that the OU is taking into consideration any possible environmental impacts when they certify a plant.

Green’s defines Kashrut as something being fit for eating and I believe that in the 21st century we need to expand this from fit for eating to fit for consumption. We are a society of consumers we consume food, services, products like clothing. We buy vehicles which in turn consume gas and we give little thought to whether or not what we are consuming is actually fit for consumption.

This is why people like Reb Zalman are promoting innovations such as Eco-Kashrut so that we can begin thinking about whether or not the things we use are actually fit for consumption.

Oops it seems I have strayed a little off-topic, so let me bring it back to food.

Regardless of whether one wants to look at consuming plant based foods or animal products we need to come up with a better system for better assessing whether or not to these foods are in fact fit for consumption. I do not have any definitive answers and I am not claiming to be an expert but I personally believe that we need to update our approach.

• We need a system that takes into consideration not only the old criteria but also important new ones.
  
• We need to take into consideration whether the food we are consuming is healthy for us and unfortunately the current kosher system does not do that very well.
  
• We need to update the kosher process to ensure that the foods we eat are not promoting obesity, cancer, diabetes or a host of other illnesses.
  
• We need a system that insurers a minimum standard of animal welfare is met and unfortunately a Kashrut that allows for the current factory farming cannot meet such a standard.
  
• We need a system that promotes Environmental Responsibility with regard to all aspects of food production. Including pesticide use, ecological impacts of growth as well as food transportation and storage.
  
• We need a system that promotes economic sustainability and fair trade. We need to ask ourselves if food that is produced by workers who are exploited or live in poverty is indeed fit for consumption.

Kashrut is meant to sanctify eating and create a sense of holiness but how can this be done unless the above conditions are met?

Humanity has evolved and become much more complex than it was even a mere 100 years ago. We need an ethical system that reflects this new complexity because anything short of this in my opinion only diminishes us in the eyes of G-D.

And with that I will end this long-winded rant and wish you all a pleasant Shabbos.

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I stumbled across this great video of Reb Zalman yesterday and thought it was worth sharing with others. It’s hard not to love this guy and by that I mean relate to him at a heart level. There are certainly things about Renewal that I have a difficult time accepting but Reb Zalman is not one of them. I don’t know if the Judaism which Reb Zalman speaks of is authentic but it certainly comes off as honest.

Please do check these two clips out and share your thoughts.

In this 1st clip from what I’m assuming is some kind of documentary on Reb Zalman and/or Jewish renewal . Zalman manages to cover a fair amount of ground and make some rather interesting points. Including the role of covenant and the importance of the ego in Jewish spirituality.

I often have a hard time with what I perceive as leftist mob rule within organizations such as Jewish Renewal. That’s not to say that they are always like that but simply that I’m often hit by that kind of a vibe when interacting with those involved in Renewal. However I don’t get that from Reb Zalman in the least and this video clip is worth watching just for the fact that he makes it clear that Jewish Renewal needs to be open to people of the right as much as it has been to people in the left. Listening to him I didn’t get the sense it was one of those we will save the people from the right but rather that a true Jewish Renewal is something which needs to be flexible enough to accommodate true diversity.

Anyhow after having seen these two short clips I’m definitely curious about checking out the whole documentary. If anyone has seen the entire thing please let me know what you thought of it.

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A couple of weeks back I found this quote by Mordecai Kaplan somewhere online and saved it for later use in a post. However it’s been so long that I seem to have forgotten just where I snagged it from. I know that it was online and I’m sure it was taken from a relatively reliable source. Come to think of it I have this vague sense that this quote may have originally been in Kaplan’s classic book “Judaism as an Evolving Religious Civilization” but I can’t say for sure.

Anyhow it’s a great quote regardless of where it came from so here it is.

“To believe in God means to take for granted that it is man’s destiny to rise above the brute and to eliminate all forms of violence and exploitation from human society.” 

This quote captures with great elegance and simplicity my own recent thinking on what it means to believe in G-D as well as the implications that such a belief holds. Of course if I want to be picky I can point out that his use of the term “man” is somewhat pejorative towards approximately 50% of those who believe in G-D. However considering that it was most likely written at least 50 or 60 years ago I think that it’s OK to let this one slide.

It is a quote that speaks to me in so many ways and on so many levels. It informs me that to believe in G-D means that I must elevate myself above my own inner darkness and lower nature. I read Kaplan’s words as a call encouraging all of us to stop engaging in violence against ourselves, each other and the world we inhabit. I believe this quote pithily points out the incredible incompatibility between a truly spiritual life and the willful engagement in exploitation, no matter how small it maybe.

I read this as a simple instruction to open my eyes, mind and heart, so that I can better see how it is that I am manifesting in this life I’ve been given. Also just beneath the surface of this quote. I suspect that Kaplan is imploring us to remember that we are but stewards here for a short time and are responsible not only for our Neshamah’s work in this life but also the legacy we leave behind for future generations.

I think Kaplan’s quote grabbed my attention because not only does it speak to the parts of me that I am aware of but also to the parts of me that are just now beginning to emerge as I work my way up the ladder one rung at a time. Reading his words today I couldn’t help but reflect on my last post and think to myself “ yes I understand what you’re saying and in my own muddled way, I’m indeed working on it.”

And on that note Shavua Tov.

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Note: this post originally started off as a comment on another blog but I decided to expand it into a post of its own.

As a progressive Jew I’m sympathetic to Michael Lerner’s work but having said that something about him just doesn’t grab me. I don’t own any of his books, although often times when I walk into a bookstore I feel like I should be picking up the Left Hand of G-D. I have on several occasions spent 20 to 30 minute in-store sessions flipping through the pages but the book just always winds up back on the shelf. I’m not exactly sure why but I guess there’s some subconscious red flag that keeps popping up and preventing me from making the purchase.

Like I mentioned above I am sympathetic to what Rabbi Lerner is trying to accomplish both with his book and with his Network For Spiritual Progressives (NSP). I certainly agree with the basic tenets of the NSP and view them as things I can stand behind on both ethical and spiritual grounds.

For those of you unfamiliar with the tenants here they are.

Basic1. Changing the Bottom Line in America

Today, institutions and social practices are judged efficient, rational and productive to the extent that they maximize money and power. That’s the Old Bottom Line. Now Here is the NEW BOTTOM LINE for which we advocate: We believe that they should be judged rational, efficient and productive not only to the extent that they maximize money and power, but also to the extent that they maximize love and caring, ethical and ecological sensitivity and behavior, kindness and generosity, non-violence and peace, and to the extent that they enhance our capacities to respond to other human beings in a way that honors them as embodiments of the sacred, and enhances our capacities to respond to the earth and the universe with awe, wonder and radical amazement.

2. Challenging the misuse of religion, God and spirit by the Religious Right

Educating people of faith to the understanding that a serious commitment to God, religion and spirit should manifest in social activism aimed at peace, universal disarmament, social justice with a preferential option for the needs of the poor and the oppressed, a commitment to end poverty, hunger, homelessness, inadequate education and inadequate health care all around the world, and a commitment to nuclear non-proliferation, environmental protection and repair of the damage done to the planet by 150 years of environmentally irresponsible behavior in industrializing societies.

3. Challenging the many anti-religious and anti-spiritual assumptions and behaviors that have increasingly become part of the liberal culture

Challenging as well the extreme individualism and me-firstism that permeate all parts of the global market culture. We will educate people in social change movements to carefully distinguish between their legitimate critiques of the Religious Right and their illegitimate generalizing of those criticisms to all religious or spiritual beliefs and practices. We will help social change activists and others in the liberal and progressive culture become more conscious of and less afraid to affirm their own inner spiritual yearnings and to reconstitute a visionary progressive social movement that incorporates the spiritual dimension, of which the loving, spiritually elevating and connecting aspects of religion has been one expression (but so has the group-in-fusion experience of the movements of the 30’s and the 60’s and the communitarian aspirations of many other efforts–social healing and health care, progressive summer camps, the wide appeal of service and service learning, the women’s spirituality movement etc).

from the Network of Spiritual Progressives website

Yet somehow I just can’t escape this feeling that there’s an underlying one-sided holier than thou aggressiveness that permeates the Network as well as Rabbi Lerner’s work in general. I don’t think it’s intentional so maybe the term infected is a more accurate descriptor. I just seem  to get this sense of us versus them and vilifying the other side, which in this case would be the right and religious right. In fact to the point that they (the right) are pure evil and don’t hold any piece of the truth. I’m certainly a liberal and left of center by nature but I don’t think that means that there is nothing of value in what the right is trying to accomplish.

So I must unfortunately agree with Ken Wilber when he writes about Lerner’s Left Hand of G-D on page 297 of his own new book “Integral Spirituality”.

“His latest book, the left hand of G-D, is even more polarized and more intensely green than usual, so in my opinion, this is not looking promising.”

I’m far from being a guy who has a handle on my own judgmentalism and I certainly can be aggressive. I guess I just have higher standards placed upon organizations like the SPN and community leaders such as Rabbi Lerner.

All of that being said I do believe that the work being done by Lerner and his organization is important and worth checking out. I’m just convinced that it all still needs some fine tuning if it’s actually going to make a difference.

Regardless of whether you’re going to buy the book or not if you’re interested in this topic, you might want to check out the following 80 minute video lecture by Lerner which in my opinion does a decent job summarizing the book.

Be well

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Andrew Cohen the man behind WIE and self proclaimed Spiritual Guru was in Israel last September on some kind of teaching tour. During his visit he took some time out to participate in an interesting interview which discussed among other things, Israel and what Cohen refers to as “Evolutionary Spirituality“.

I’ve known of Andrew Cohen and his work for about six or seven years thanks to a friend who talked me into buying an issue of his What Is Enlightenment magazine. Coincidentally (or maybe not, who knows) that issue also turned me on to Don Beck and Spiral Dynamics which is something I’m hugely interested in but that’s a topic for another post.

While I’m off-topic I might as well mention that Ken Wilber also recently did an interview (phone) with a journalist from Israel. I meant to post about it while Tamara was here but to be honest several of his comments aggravated me so much I decided not to bother for the time being. Let’s just say that I didn’t feel he came off all that “Integrally Informed” about Judaism and I basically figured that if I didn’t have anything positive to say, I might as well not say anything at all. However maybe I can come back to it later on this week and try tying it into this post. Who knows?

Okay let’s try to get back on track with this here post…

At least on the surface much of Cohen’s Evolutionary Enlightenment shtick resonates with me and I believe that many aspects of his Evolutionary Spirituality are quite compatible with Judaism, at least the more liberal/progressive expressions of it. However many things about the man and the way he personally manifests in the world just doesn’t work for me. I suppose there are several reasons for my cautiousness about him but they aren’t relevant to this post, so I won’t bother going into them. For me the bottom line is that Andrew Cohen is right on the mark about a few things which are IMO both important and worthy of exploration. I don’t have to accept him as enlightened or as my spiritual teacher in order to benefit from his views, so I see no need to throw the guru out with the bath water.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Okay I just made that equation up because I thought it was catchy but to be honest I really have no idea what I’m talking about, so don’t take it too seriously.

This weekend has been a little bit extreme in an odd sort of way. I’m not sure why I have been in such an intense state all weekend. Maybe it’s because I finally completed a course for school that I was having a very hard time with and am now excited about starting my next academic project. Maybe it’s because there’s a lot of changes on the horizon, who knows?

I suppose in a nutshell I’m just in some sort of a period of hyper focus and along with that comes a sense of hypersensitivity to my environment. This heightened sensitivity unfortunately often also means that I’m easily frustrated by both people and situations which can be a real pain in the ass.

What I do love about being in this type of the state is that I feel a strong sense of stewardship in terms of my life being purposeful and somehow connected to G-D and the big picture. I can’t really explain it other than to say it’s an intuitive experience and although I can’t quite place my thumb on it in any conscious sort of way, I truly can feel its presence.

So that’s got me thinking a lot about purpose and meaning in terms of my life, my relationships and my goals and what can I say it feels really good. In fact it’s a little hard to handle, sort of like too much life force running through me and its making sparks. I love it but I wouldn’t mind being able to turn it down a notch or two. Because it’s just too intense for me, not to mention for those around me.

Anyhow this evening with my sense of stewardship on my mind, I watched a couple of Bnei Baruch videos on the subject of ego, purpose and Kabbalah. Bnei Baruch is in my opinion one of, if not the best source for introductory material on Kabbalah. There are some things about them as an organization that I take with a grain of salt and I certainly don’t agree with all of their assertions about what Kabbalah is or isn’t. However they provide excellent introductory courses on the philosophy and technical aspects of Kabbalah and it’s where I’ve done almost all of my learning, so it ain’t all bad.

Here are the videos along with a few thoughts.

Note: keep in mind that I said I personally take some of what this organization says with a grain of salt.  So buyer beware, take what you find useful and leave the rest behind.

The Need for Purpose

What I like about this is how Rav Laitman hits on the issue that life is in fact purposeful; it’s just a question of realizing it. I can handle the notion that life is not meaningless or something to be escaped but rather embraced and properly put to use. Actually I can more than just handle it, I’m banking on it.

How Do We Get Rid Of The Ego?

The bottom line is that ego and desire can be helpful tools and in receiving we have the opportunity to give.

How cool is that?

It certainly seems like a natural and organic process and it fits well into my sense of stewardship and purpose.

3D Dialogue: Kabbalah

My only real criticisms of this last video are that I’m not sure I buy into the Kabbalah actually having been discovered by Abraham. Nor do feel it’s all that important to the practicality and use of Kabbalah today.

The other thing that bugs me is how Bnei Baruch seems to always go to great lengths to paint Kabbalah as a science and not as a religion and/or mystical path. I personally don’t feel that mysticism is a dirty word and I don’t think it’s an inappropriate term to use in reference to Kabbalah. Having said that I’m also fine to me if they want to call it science, because I think it can be both.

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For a while now I have had the good fortune to be engaged in a casual dialogue with William of Integral-Options-Café. For those of you who have no idea of who or what I am talking about. William runs a great blog focusing on a variety of topics related to Integral Theory and Spiral Dynamics, as seen through his eyes in daily life. It’s a great blog and has been a real help in terms of assisting me in upping my Integral Literacy level.

This week we seem to have formalized our discussion at least in terms of a theme. And it would seem that we are going to look into various aspects of Judaism as a religious (& evolving?) civilization through the perceptual lenses of Integral Theory and Spiral Dynamics, which arguably are both part of the same Integral framework.

Neither of us are Jewish scholars or experts and so this obviously wont be academic but IMO will be interesting none the less. Having said that William is IMO very well versed in both Integral Theory and Spiral Dynamics, without being locked into either an Orthodox Understanding or fully buying into the Institutional Branding aspects of Integral.

As for myself, I’m no expert on Integral Theory but I have been applying many aspects of it to my schoolwork, specifically in terms of how value based political ideologies influence social policy. I guess that’s to say that I may not be an expert but I am familiar with the subject. And as for Judaism I am by no means a scholar but I’m a Jew by choice, meaning that I certainly had to work hard and study in order to join the tribe. Therefore IMO at a bare minimum I consider myself to be fairly Jewishly literate.

Anyhow one of the things that William asked me to do was help provide some Jewish context for us to work from because he’s not all that well versed in contemporary liberal Jewish thought. So I suggested that a good place to start would be in looking at the CCAR 1999 Statement of Principles as well as the related Commentary on it. Neither of these documents are really definitive in any absolute sense, however I believe they will be sufficient in terms of providing a foundational framework for us to begin our discussion from.

I also suggested that another possible source for providing a framework might be Arthur Green’s book ”Seek My Face - a Jewish Mystical Theology“.

I am now going to suggest two more possible sources which might be valuable in terms of providing a Jewish context for our discussion. The first is a lecture series by Dr. Michael A. Meyer on several topics related to Progressive Judaism. The second also a lecture series this time by Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, is more focused on Mystical Theology in what I would call a postmodern context. Both of these audio’s are available in a streaming online format as part of a free trial, so there’s no cost involved. In fact not even a credit card is required just a valid e-mail address and a password.

It’s hard to tell just where this conversation will go but I’m confident that wherever it winds up its going to be interesting and is going to make for some great blogging. Provided that William is okay with it I will hopefully be doing regular updates on the blog regarding our ongoing/evolving dialogue.

Let me end by saying that I’m very excited about the opportunity here in terms of deepening my understanding of Integral Theory as well as my understanding of Judaism and possibly even my own sense of Jewishness.

So stay Tuned.

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