A friend from Canada sent me a link to this video in an email today and I thought it was rather beautiful and worth sharing.

So enjoy!

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This morning I woke up at the ung-dly hour of 5 something AM and couldn’t get back to sleep. So I decided to see if there was anything new and interesting to watch online and that’s when I came across this.

They do not believe in peace talks. They do not want to share the land. They are well armed and are carrying out increasingly violent attacks, even targeting innocent civilians. They are members of Israel’s militant far right, and they are threatening to become Israel’s next big problem.

Read more about this documentary on the PBS webpage.

I’m far from being the most informed person when it comes to the many complicated nuances involved in the Israeli/Palestinian situation. However I just don’t understand how the extremists in this video can see themselves as being any different than Palestinian extremists. Murder is murder and misappropriation of G-D is insanely wrong regardless of whether you call him Allah or Hashem. Don’t get me wrong I think that much of what is done at the hands of Palestinian extremists is horrible but watching this documentary it’s clear that the bullshit flows both ways.

Anyhow I was disturbed by this documentary but it was very informative and I highly recommend checking it out.

Part one

Part two

Part three

Part four

Part five

Part six

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I just stumbled across this on Youtube and thought its was kind of cool, so I’m sharing it here. I don’t know when it originally aired but like I said, I thought it was kind of cool.  

Enjoy!

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As a fatty myself, I thought this was kind a cool even if it was a Chabad Rabbi

I bet he could loose another thirty if he shaved the beard off

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Sunday morning I was searching Google video to see if there were any new cool “Jewish” videos worth checking out and I stumbled across an interesting new (I’m guessing) access cable series. It’s called “I Believe” and it seems to be a show about religion and interfaith understanding. From what I gather this guy goes around in interviews leaders from various religious communities about their beliefs and practices. It’s really basic introductory kind of stuff but interesting nonetheless.

Anyhow the latest show is on Reform Judaism and it was quite interesting to watch. I actually wanted to post this yesterday morning when the show was still fresh in my mind. Because there were a few interesting things which caught my attention and it would have been fun to expand on some of the themes presented. However it is now 4:50 PM on Monday afternoon and I can’t for the life of me remember in any detail what it was that grabbed my attention other than I actually enjoyed watching it quite a bit.

So this post I guess is basically just an FYI for those of you who are interested in such things. As usual if you do watch it feel free to post your thoughts. Who knows that might just be enough to jog my memory.

Enjoy

From the episode description.

Join host Dennis Wholey for a conversation about Reform Judaism - beliefs and practices - with Rabbi Lance J. Sussman, Senior Rabbi of Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel in Philadelphia, PA.

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A couple of days ago I stumbled upon this short interview clip in which Reb Zalman is asked if he could impart one thing about Teshuvah to his grandchildren what would it be.

Reb Zalman replied with a lovely little snip it taken(I believe) from some Hassidic teaching tale which went something like this.

G-D is more angry that we don’t take advantage of Teshuvah then he is over the sin.

Actually it’s so short and easy enough for me to embed into this post why don’t you watch Reb Zalman tell the story himself.

I can’t really speak for anyone other than myself but I feel this simple and pithy statement hits the nail right on the head. I’m often able to realize when I’ve made a mistake (after the fact that is). I can even take such insights and integrate them into my conscious mind so that I’m less likely to fall into the same trap in the future. However I don’t really like copping to my mistakes so much.  I mean I’m good with learning from the past and do my best not to repeat mistakes but I have a hard time stopping myself once I realize I’ve screwed up and then go apologize to the person.  I think it’s often a combination of pride and embarrassment.

Reb Zalman’s thoughts on the subject really hit home in that I unfortunately all too often engage in the exact opposite of what he’s suggesting. Anyhow I guess there’s always room to grow and improve. I think that I will end this post with a Thank you to Reb Zalman for gently and accurately shining a little light on one of my many blind spots.

Be well

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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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This is just a quick follow-up to my earlier post today on what I see as the positive inroads currently being made by Progressive Judaism around the world. Actually I won’t lie it’s also something of a reply to Mottel’s comment on my last post.

The following is an interesting short video interview of an American visiting Poland’s Jewish community (presumably sometime in the last year or so). I’m not sure but I believe the person being interviewed is Rabbi Neil Katz a Reform rabbi from Texas.

It’s an interesting video and although it’s far from anything definitive in terms of Jewish revival in Poland, the rabbi does indeed paint an optimistic and promising picture of what’s taking place over there. All of which is just more fuel for my recent sense of optimism

Anyhow enjoy.

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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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I stumbled across this on YouTube this morning and thought I would share it with those who are either actually engaged in some form of counting the Omer or are interested in learning a more about it.

It’s a little rough and unscripted but an interesting introduction nonetheless. Also from what I gather the Rabbi is JTS trained and works out of a Reconstructionist/Conservative synagogue somewhere in Illinois.

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