Fat and Fatter in Tennessee

One good thing about living in the fourth fattest state in the US is that I look normal. According to our local newspaper, more that 75% of Tennesseans are obese or overweight. That means that obesity here is the norm. When we see someone who isn’t fat we assume they are ill.

According to a variety of scientific studies, we Tennesseans are fat because we are poor. Lucky for us we don’t value science all that much (Darwin is the Devil reads one bumper sticker), and when we look at people in poor countries they don’t look fat—they look like they’re starving. That’s why we send them money. And Jesus.

Just the other day I walked into one of our town’s two yogurt bars. The yogurt comes out of huge kegs like beer. You can sample all the flavors and then make your own yogurt treat. There are over a dozen toppings to choose from to help disguise the fact that you are eating yogurt in the first place. They charge you by weight—the weight of the yogurt and toppings, not your own weight.

Anyway, I walk into the yogurt bar and work my way through the samples. A gaggle of tween–age girls are doing the same. By the time I’m done I’m full, and don’t feel like eating any more yogurt. The girls feel the same and leave without buying anything. The clerk, a high school girl, is disappointed and a bit disgusted. She looks at me hoping I will not follow in the footsteps of the tweeners. I want to, but I’m too old to think eating this way is cool, so I buy a cup of yogurt. It was a bit bland, so I add some peanuts to it. Then some coconut. Then some hot fudge. Then some whip cream. I’m still not hungry, but I make the clerk happy, sit myself down at a table, and eat it all.

By the time I’m ready to leave, I’m feeling really bloated. I notice that the clerk is thin, and probably never eats the stuff she sells. I am feeling very fat, especially when compared to this young woman. My salvation lies outside.

As soon as I step out into the street, I’m surrounded by my obese fellow Tennesseans. As I walk the two blocks to my car the people seem to get even bigger, and I start feeling thin—hey, it was yogurt I was eating, not ice cream; and I probably walked off the calories by now anyway, and—my God!—how can these people let themselves get so fat? Have they no self-respect, no self-control? Maybe they are poor and just can’t afford to eat more healthily. Maybe I’ll send them some money. And Jesus.

Of Gods and Dogs

I have a friend who is going through something of a spiritual crisis. All her adult life she believed in Pre-Tribulation, the belief that all good Christians are raptured to heaven before God turns the earth into a living hell for seven years prior to the coming of Jesus. Believing herself to be a good Christian and certain to be raptured, she thought she would escape the horrors of God’s wrath.

But now she is studying with a new pastor and he has just about convinced her that Post-Trib theory is correct and Pre-Trib is heresy. Post-Tribulation theory says that the rapture will come only after all humanity—Christians and nonChristians alike—suffer the wrath of God—and it’s coming soon.

I feel for her; this is scary stuff. She never asks me which I believe knowing that Judaism is a Trib-free faith. So the last time she mentioned her crisis I asked a different kind of question: what about our dogs?

I prefer to dogs to people. I can see why God would hate people enough to torture them. I have those feelings myself. But I can’t see how God could hate dogs, or why God would torture them. Dogs should be raptured before the Tribulation, or at least they should if God loves dogs.

“Do you think God loves dogs?” I asked. My friend didn’t know. The Bible doesn’t say. Which led me to an interesting observation: you never hear of Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Lao Tzu, Buddha, Confucius, Mahavira, Martin Luther, Joseph Smith, Mary Baker Eddy, Madame Blavatsky, L. Ron Hubbard, or any other founder of a faith having a dog. Presidents often have dogs, but Popes never do. Why is that?

I can think of two reasons why religious founders don’t have dogs. Either they don’t like dogs, or dogs don’t like them. Or maybe they don’t like dogs because dogs don’t them, or dogs don’t like them because they don’t like dogs. Personally I wouldn’t want to follow any sage that didn’t love dogs and wasn’t loved by them. Of course if I’m going to use the dog standard I have to deal with the fact that Hitler had a dog who seemed to love him. Do dogs love unconditionally, or was this an evil dog? I don’t know. The Bible doesn’t say.

Anyway, even if it’s not foolproof, I think the dog standard is a good one. I know Zen Buddhists for whom the question “Does a dog have Buddha nature” is crucial, but I think they’ve got it backwards. For me the crucial question is, “Is it the Buddha’s nature to have a dog?”

I think I’m going to join only those religions where the founders had and loved dogs. Let me know if you know of any.

Are You a Good Person?

I was browsing the religion section of the Franklin Barnes and Nobel when a well–dressed young man asked me, “Interested in these kinds of books?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Mind if I ask you a question?” he said.

“No.”

“Are you a good person?”

“Sometimes” I said, knowing where this conversation was going. “Sometimes I’m a real SOB.”

“Have you ever told a lie or taken something that wasn’t yours?”

“Sure.”

“Then you’re a liar and a thief. Are liars and thieves good people? Do you know what happens to liars and thieves? They spend eternity in Hell. Their only hope is accepting Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Are you ready to do that?”

“Burn in Hell or accept Jesus?”

“What?”

“You asked me if I’m ready to burn in Hell or accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior. I’m not ready for either. In fact I don’t believe in either.”

“But …”

“Listen, if you really believe that the Creator of the Universe is a sadistic torturer who needs the death of an innocent in order to forgive the guilty, you’ve got a major problem. If you dare speak of God as Love, and then imagine a god who will roast you in Hell for telling your friend she doesn't look like she's gained weight when in fact she does, then you're sick. We create gods in our own image, and if this god is your image I suggest you need serious psychiatric intervention. We’re you abused as a child by your dad? You should get help.”

“F#ck you!” he said as he stormed away.

I called after him: “Do you know what God does to people who swear? He makes them burn in Hell for ever.”

He gave me the finger. Jesus would be proud.

I'm a Rabbi Because...

“Aren’t you awfully cynical to be a rabbi?”

The question came from a fellow in a Torah class I was teaching in Nashville.

“You say religion is all about power. How cynical is that? I would think a rabbi would have something far more positive to say about religion in general, and certainly about Judaism in particular. Perhaps you shouldn’t be a rabbi any longer.”

It’s true: you would think that. Who wouldn’t think that? Rabbis are supposed to say things like: The Jews are God’s Chosen People; The Torah is God’s one true revelation; Israel is the Promised Land. I, on the other hand, can’t help but see such statements as marketing propaganda.

If you’re going to imagine a god who chooses people, it isn’t surprising that you imagine this god choosing you. If you’re going to imagine a god who reveals truth in a book, it isn’t surprising that you would imagine this book is your book. And if you’re going to imagine a god who dabbles in real estate, it isn’t surprising that you would imagine that your land is in fact the Promised Land.

What would be surprising—and perhaps far more convincing—would be if the Jews thought God chose someone else, wrote something else, and lived somewhere else.

And what about my notion that religious institutions are all about power? Can they be about anything else? By and large, religions are patriarchal hierarchies that demand do whatever it is that the clergy’s god wants. And what their god wants most of all is for them to do what the clergy say.

I’m not saying that religions cannot and do not do good in the world; they can and they do. I am only saying that doing good is not why they were created. Is this cynicism or honesty? I think it is the latter. So should being honest drive me out of the rabbinate? Not just yet.
I am a rabbi because, at our best, rabbis are iconoclasts, shattering the past against the sharp rocks of creative imagination.

I am a rabbi because, at our best, rabbis are heirs to the prophets and their passion for justice, and not the priests and their obsession with ritual and purity.
I am a rabbi because, at our best, rabbis are meaning–makers.
I am a rabbi because, at our best, rabbis reinvent the past as a means of creating the future.
I am a rabbi because, at our best, rabbis are willing to kill the old gods and invent the new gods by rewriting the old stories to make them new stories.
I am a rabbi because, at our best, rabbis are willing to speak truth to power, even when that power holds their financial future in its hands.

True, we are not always at our best. But many of us are, and the rest can always hope.
So I will continue to do what I think rabbis are supposed to do: teach truth as best we can regardless of where is leads us.

From Birkenstocks to Burkhas

I hate the idea of enslaving women to the mores and power of men. I want women to make their own choices regarding every aspect of their lives, and I will defend to the death of someone younger, poorer, and less able to avoid being sent to die in one of our seemingly endless imperialist wars than I, their right to do so.

But what do I do when they choose badly? It is one thing, for example, to hate the burka when it is imposed on women by men, and another thing to hate it when women freely choose to wear it. No, I’m not talking about Muslim women. I have my doubts that Saudi women are any more free regarding the clothes they wear then they are regarding the cars they drive.

I am talking about Jewish women. I learned from Miriam Shaviv’s column in the April 29th issue of the Forward that there is a small movement of ultra–Orthodox women in Israel who have taken to wearing the burka as a sign of modesty. Their men are not asking them to do this, let alone forcing them. Indeed, in 2005 a rabbinic court granted a divorce to one man married to a burka wearing wife on the grounds that any Jewish women who took modesty that far suffered from a “serious mental disturbance.”

The burkah babes are followers of Bruria Keren, a convicted child abuser who wears ten layers of clothing whenever she leaves her home. They argue that their fashion choice is a statement of modesty and choice. Ms. Shaviv disagrees seeing it instead as the logical extension of the male imposition of modesty on women. She sights the fact that ultra–Orthodox women must wear high necklines, thick colored stockings, long sleeves, and wigs, and that they are being asked to wear rubber soled shoes so as not to disturb men when they walk by. It is a small step from Birkenstocks to burkhas.

Maybe so. But since most Jewish women choose not to wear burkhas, I can’t help but think that those who do are doing so of their own free will.

So while I would like to use the burkha as a sign of women’s oppression in some Islamic societies, I cannot do so when it comes to some Jewish ones. Given this double standard, perhaps I should stop using it as a sign of anything.

I would love to hear from you about this. Are burkahs always a sign of oppression? What about male imposed modesty laws in general? What about restaurants demanding that patrons wear shirts and shoes when entering (exposing one’s genitals and butt is still OK)? Maybe we should all just go nude as sign of our freedom? I hope some of you agree with that. I hope most of you don’t.

Voting of the Damned: Why I Like Gov. Rick Perry for President

Despite Herman Cain’s and Michelle Bachmann’s strong performances last night at the GOP Presidential Debates, if he runs for president, Texas Governor Rick Perry has my vote.

I voted for hope and change in the last presidential election, and, as Dr. Phil (the only doctor my insurance company will pay for) says, “How's that working for ya?”

I voted for peace, and we went from two wars to five (Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, and Yemen). I voted to curb extremist capitalism, and we only fed it. I voted for a new approach to empire and the environment and got more of the same. I voted for FDR and a new WPA and, well, you get the idea.

So this time around I’m voting for a man who offers me no hope and no change. At least that way I won’t be disappointed. Here is the Governor’s main selling point for me at the moment:

Governor Perry has called all governors to join him on August 6 for a day of prayer and fasting. This will be, he assures us, an "apolitical Christian prayer service" sponsored by the American Family Association. Right there he’s got me. A Christian only prayer service. That’s honest: America is a Christian Nation with Christian leaders following the Christian god. Of course Catholics, Jews and Muslims and other nonChristians can live here, but let’s not let them run the place. It gets better.

Governor Perry’s event has adopted the AFA's platform that, among other things, affirms the infallibility of the Bible (Science? Please, what has science ever done for us?); the centrality of Jesus Christ (There is only one god and JC is It, so enough of this ecumenical nonsense); and the eternal damnation of all nonbelievers. This last is the part I love the most.

Here’s is Governor Perry’s motto: “No hope (for salvation) unless you change (to my religion).” I admire a politician who is upfront and honest, and what is more upfront and honest then telling me that he expects me and everyone I love to burn in Hell for all eternity unless I convert to his religion?

Of course aligning himself with a god that will torment me forever in the next world suggests that President Perry won't care much about me in this world. I can hear him now, "Healthcare for Jews? They're going to burn in Hell anyway. Let 'em die." Nothing confusing there. Simple. Honest. Straightforward. What's not to like?

So, Governor, assuming you run, and you aren't raptured before Election Day, and I’m not burning in Hell on Election Day, and the GOP hasn’t yet figured out a way to keep Jews, Blacks, the elderly, the young, and the poor from voting at all, you've got my vote.

Westboro Church Coming to Nashville JCC

This Monday the good people of the Westboro Baptist Church are coming to the Nashville Jewish Community Center to sing these words to the tune of Hatikva, the Israeli National Anthem:

Christ is soon returning
to take you from this land

You won't obey Him
or do what he commands.
Wrath will soon pour on you,
for your awful sins

Your great affliction,
it will soon begin.

All the nations, on Israel will march.

You're not Zion, no hope in your heart.

You killed the Savior, for this sin you all must pay.

Those who fear God, come out from them - To Day.

Based on the last line, the intent of this hymn is to call Jews out of our ignorance and into the true faith as Westboro Baptists understand it. I don’t think it will work. Let’s take a closer look at the hymn to see why.

Christ is soon returning to take you from this land
 Actually no. If Christ returns he will take Christians from this land and lift them into Heaven. Jews he will leave behind to deal with later. Of course if the Jewish messiah comes he will take Jews from America and bring them to Israel. I’m looking forward to this seeing as I can’t afford to fly there on my own.

You won't obey Him or do what he commands. True. Most Jews just don’t take God and mitzvot all that seriously. We used to, but after two exiles, the Inquisition, innumerable pogroms, the Holocaust, and the endless wars against Israel we just got tired.

Wrath will soon pour on you, for your awful sins/Your great affliction, it will soon begin.
Yeah, this is pretty much our standard worldview as well.

All the nations, on Israel will march.
Yep, we’ve been saying that for centuries as well. As far as we’re concerned the Arab Spring just might turn out to be an Arab springboard for an all out war on Israel and world Jewry.

You're not Zion, no hope in your heart.
 This makes no sense. We are ZIONists, and HOPE is our anthem. It is the very tune they are singing.

You killed the Savior, for this sin you all must pay. While we might quibble that the Romans killed Jesus, certainly there were some Jews at the time who were down with that. But the fact is God isn’t punishing Jews for killing Jesus. God sends people to Hell for not accepting the right brand of Christianity and get the Get Out Of Hell Free Card that comes with it.

Those who fear God, come out from them - To Day. Most Jews are fairly agnostic on the God thing, and those who do fear God worry more about improperly killing a cow than illegally killing Jesus, so I doubt this is going to get the Westboro folks many converts.

All in all, then, the Westboro hymn is going to fall on deaf ears, and not simply because most of the Jews at the JCC at the time of the Westboro visit are old and deaf anyway. After you've survived the Nazis, a gaggle of Christians singing a silly song just isn't going to do much.

Even if the Westboro folks were coming just to remind us that God hates Jews just as much as they believe God hats fags (see their website godfatesfags.org), they would still fail. We already know this about God and gays. After all when it comes to God killing Jews, and calling homosexuality an abomination, we wrote the Book.

The Other Weiner Story, or, I Left My Heart in San Francisco, but My Foreskin Stayed with Me

A San Francisco initiative to outlaw circumcision for both girls and boys makes being Jewish in the city all the more challenging. I mean how can a Jew be a Jew without serving up one's penis to God? Yes, there seems to be the obvious exemption of fore skinning for girls, but women are exempted from many of the cooler aspects of traditional Jewish life like praying three times a day, wearing tefillin, and testifying in court?

You might think there will be a religious exemption to the San Francisco law based on the First Amendment, but this isn't always reliable. For example the government outlawed polygamy, and in 1944 the Supreme Court ruled that parents could martyr themselves on religious grounds but could not martyr their children as well.

If the intactivists (I didn't make that up) have their way, the Jews of Frisco will have to circumcise in secret or slip out of the city to have our penises whacked.

As always challenges such as these give rise to entrepreneurial ventures. I am exploring building a fleet of medical vans especially outfitted for ritual circumcisions. Called Cut 'n Run, these vans will whisk a Jewish family outside the San Francisco city limits where the van will park while the ritual circumcision is performed. The van will then return the family home where a catered meal and invited guests are awaiting them.

Of course the city will add Penis Patrols to their police departments to try and prevent my vans from making it out of the city, but I plan to paint cute dogs on the sides of my vans so that they look like dog grooming and exercise trucks, something no self respecting San Franciscan could oppose.

Onward Christian Soldiers

While it is common for some US Christians to complain about the Muslim war against Christianity, we rarely hear about the Christian war against Buddhism.

My friend Dr. Paul Knitter, Paul Tillich Professor of Theology, World Religions, and Culture at Union Theological Seminary, reports of fundamentalist Korean Christians attacking Buddhist monasteries and shrines to conduct exorcisms of images of the Buddha, and marching around shrines claiming the land for Christ.

A bit of research revealed that this has been going on for decades as South Korea becomes more and more Christian, with the Korean government, police, and army coming under Christian rule and being used to destroy Buddhist shrines and conduct “heavy and violent” propaganda campaigns against Buddhism.

You can see photos of the destruction at http://www.buddhapia.com/eng/tedesco/pic1/list.html

This is what we can expect in any country that falls under the control of fundamentalists of any faith. While it is vital that we distinguish between violent fundamentalism and saner liberal varieties of religion, it is important that we stand against fundamentalism.

As my Christian and Jewish friends demand that liberal Muslims speak out against their violent fundamentalist strains, we should be no less demanding of Jews and Christians regarding their own crazy cousins.

Dhimmis More

As the on-going war against Islam continues in Middle Tennessee, I was asked recently how I thought we ought to treat our Muslim neighbors. When my suggestion that we do unto others as we would want others to do unto us was dismissed as Socialism, I suggested we adopt a Tennessee version of the eighth century Pact of Umar.

Under the Pact of Umar Jews and Christians were dhimmis—protected subjects. Jews and Christians were guaranteed the right to practice their religions and to own property, though they were not allowed to build new churches or synagogues, or repair old ones. They were forbidden to hold public religious parades, or proselytize; they couldn’t strike a Muslim, bear arms, or ride horses, and they had to wear clothing that set them apart from the Muslim population. In time new rules were added and Jews and Christians were prevented from building homes taller than those of Muslims, from taking Muslim names, studying the Qur’an, selling alcohol, and serving in the government. And they had to pay a special tax so that they, along with Muslims who are taxed to support the community, would do the same.

So why not pass a bill that offered Muslims the same rights in Christian America as Christians had in Muslim lands? It really would solve a lot of problems here in the mid-state:

1.Allowing Muslims to practice Islam puts us in line with the 1st Amendment
2.Forbidding Muslims from building or repairing mosques ends the debate over mosques in TN
3.Forbidding parades and proselytizing (by Muslims but not of Muslims) would ease the fears of those who worry that Islam is taking over Tennessee
4.Forbidding Muslims from hitting Christians and bearing arms ends Islamic terrorism
5.Many Muslims already wear distinctive clothes, so making it mandatory is no big deal, and
6.Keeping Muslims out of government would ease any worries about Muslims using our democracy to impose their theocracy before we can use our democracy to impose our theocracy

I would make a few changes to the Pact of Umar, however. For example, no special taxes should be levied, as Muslim Americans pay the same tax as other Americans who lack the funds to lobby for and exploit exemptions that permit them to pay little or not taxes. I don’t care if Muslims ride horses, or sell alcohol. I would also permit them to name their kids Matthew, Mark, Luke, John if they want to, and build any size house they can afford, assuming there is no objection from any local mega-church groups. I would also allow Muslims to study the Bible as this might bring them closer to Christ.

So how about it? A Pact of Umar for Tennessee’s Muslims? Our Muslim citizens couldn’t complain about that—it was their idea. Let me know.

Rapture Reflux

Hello? Hello? Is anyone out there?

I just came back from a walk and I didn’t see a single soul. We’re you Raptured? Are you in Heaven?

It seems so empty in my neighborhood. So quiet. Even the cicadas seem to have been taken up to heaven.

SHEMA YISRAEL ADONAI…. Anyone? Anyone? There must be some Jews out there. Where are we going to eat? All the Chinese restaurants in my town are run by Chinese Christians and they went to heaven.

ALLAH HU…. Anyone? Anyone? Falafel and humus sound good just about now. There must be some Muslims around. Lucky them: all the people that hated them were raptured to heaven so now they can build their mosque. But they better build fast: in five months—fire! The whole earth burned to ash. Man when God cleans up after Himself He doesn’t fool around.

Well, I have no idea who’s left on the planet. There are lots of dogs barking, so I guess that book about dogs going to heaven was a lie. I bet the author is still around somewhere. He’s going to burn for sure.

Is there something we can do about this? I mean the good are gone and the rest of us are doomed. What if we convert? Jesus save me!...........

Nope. I’m still here. I guess he knows I can’t make myself believe what I was taught was make believe. So it’s my parents fault. HEY! My parents! They weren’t raptured. I think I’ll call them and see what is going on over there. I bet they have restaurants that are open—I mean they live in a Jewish ghetto. I never should have left home. I had no idea that God was going to take all my neighbors. I was certain that Catholics and Episcopalians would be left behind, but I can’t find a Papist or a Tory anywhere.

This is so sad. God, I’m sorry I killed Your Son. And I’m sorry I didn’t believe in Him. And I’m sorry I stayed Jewish when You wanted me to be Baptist. Can’t You forgive me? Hello? God?

WHOA! Outside my window! Cars are driving by. And there’s somebody walking her dog. Thank God, thank God, it wasn’t the Rapture after all. I just woke up early and no one was out and about yet. But now—they’re all here!

I knew it was a lie! Take that Jesus! Take that God of Love! We’re all left behind and maybe we’ll leave you behind too. How would you like that? Huh? Wouldya? Huh? Of course You may have taken a couple of people to heaven and that would count as the Rapture and that would mean that we will all die in five months. So I take all that back, God. We can be cool, right? I mean burning billions of people and animals alive that sounds harsh even for You. Maybe we should talk. You need help.

Rapture Ready? Tomorrow's the Big Day

Well this is it, the end times. Tomorrow is the Rapture when God calls all faithful Christians to heaven leaving the rest of us to await the destruction of the world by fire on October 21st. I knew it was coming, and even blogged about it a few weeks ago, but now it’s here, and, honestly, it has me rattled.

I’ll be teaching a workshop on loving kindness at a church this Saturday, and I expect many of the participants to be taken to heaven sometime during my presentation. Those who are left won’t be in much of a mood to be loving or kind, so we’ll probably end early. I’ll look for an ice cream store run by unsaved folks and hence still open, and order a hot fudge sundae. No point in dieting when there are only five months left.

Anyway, I don’t know if you are on the Rapture Train or not, and if you are I wish you well. But if you’re not, what will you do?

Seriously. What will you do? Is there any reason to go to work? Don’t worry about your rent or mortgage or any other bills. You can stall for five months and then its all over anyway, so why work? If you don’t have to pay your bills, you’ll have plenty of cash to use for food, so you won’t starve before you burn.

OK, so you won’t work. How will you spend your time? What would you do differently if you knew—as you can know if you want to know*—that the world is ending in five months? Would you leave your spouse? Move to another town? Admit that you’re gay or Kenyan or on the No-Fly list? How sad to think that you will just keep doing what your doing until you spontaneously combust on Friday, October 21st.

I know what I would like to do. I won’t tell you because I’m not going to do it on the off chance that the world will still be here on October 22nd Yes my fear of change is that great. But how about you? Are you as cowardly as me?

If you knew you had but five months to live, five healthy and financially sound months by the way, how would you live them?

*For more info on the end of the world, visit http://www.ebiblefellowship.com/outreach/tracts/may21/

Future of Inter-Faith

A very articulate essay* by Rabbi Michael Balinsky, a trustee of the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions, raises what is for me a troubling issue.

An Orthodox Jew, Rabbi Balinsky isn’t comfortable praying with people of other faiths. He was relieved to discover that the Parliament, out of respect for the different religions of which it is comprised, doesn’t do group prayer. From what I can tell, each religion is encouraged to stay in its own box, collaborating with the others only on those issues of common concern: climate, poverty, etc.

While I respect this, for me it just isn’t enough. When I sit with people of different faiths I don’t want to talk about what we have in common, I want to talk about where we differ. I want to learn another’s way of seeing the world, and learn it so deeply that it may transform the way I see the world as well.

Religions are lens through which their respective followers view reality. Each lens has its distortion that makes its view of reality unique and less than accurate. For me, inter-faith work is about discovering our distortions and seeking to correct them. One way to do this is to share lenses, and in so doing realize that all lenses distort, and that no lens is right, and in this way cultivate a deep humility that allows us to honor differing lenses without the illusion that any one of them reveals the truth.

It is this humility that allows me to pray in any religious tradition. To me the point isn’t the words or the world-view, but the experience of slipping into the greater whole of which I am a part.

I suspect I am leaving religion behind. I cannot stay within my box. I am finding myself less and less comfortable in the Jewish world and the inter-faith world. I love religion the way I love literature and music, but I refuse to be limited to one author, composer or genre. Humans create religion, art, literature, music, science, etc. I am human—it is all my heritage. Why is it so lonely in a place that should be so welcoming?

The first weekend of February 2012 I am hosting SAStalks at Scarritt-Bennett Center in Nashville. (SAS stands for Spirit, Art, and Science.) We are inviting 18 speakers to speak for 18 minutes each on the topic of “The Future of Inter-faith.” I hope to hear ideas that show me the way, because right now I am despairing there is one.

• http://www.parliamentofreligions.org/news/index.php/2011/05/do-we-have-to-pray-together/?utm_source=Parliament+Newsletter&utm_campaign=f72d956125-Newsletter_15&utm_medium=email

Surrounded by Books

I live surrounded by books. This is true physically and metaphorically. I am what I have read. In fact I have a book addiction: I am convinced that the next book I read will at last answer all my questions, so I buy lots of books. It never works, of course, so I buy lots more. I am forever skimming magazines for ads regarding new books, and then rush to my computer to order just those that will answer all my questions.

I know it doesn’t work, but I do it anyway. It is a compulsion. I am an addict. True, given all the other addictions one might have, an addiction to books is not so bad. It would even be better if I actually read the books I buy. The truth is, however, that after reading just a few pages I realize that I have read this book before—not this actual book by this particular author, but the same ideas. In a sense I keep buying the same books over and over and over again. The joys of addiction.

Everyone once in a while I pretend I’m going to change. I sift through all my books and cull the best, and donate the rest to the library at Middle Tennessee State University. That way I still have access to them if I need them without having to stare at them day in and day out.

It’s getting to be another of these “once in a while” moments.

There are only ten books that I really need: The Book by Alan Watts, The First and Last Freedom by J. Krishnamurti, I & Thou by Martin Buber, Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson, the Tao te Ching by Lao Tzu, The Inner Chapters by Chuang Tzu, and the biblical books of Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes, and John. Together these form the library from which I invent my philosophy of life.

I am tempted to donate all but these ten to the library, but I doubt I’ll ever do so.

First, because I love other books by these authors, and like having them around. Second, because there are other authors I value highly and prefer to not live without: Spinoza, Kafka, Nachman of Breslov, Edmund Jabes, Hermann Hesse, Rumi, Bankei, Blake, Marshal McLuhan, Erich Fromm, and William James.

No, the first step toward literary sobriety isn’t getting rid of more books, but stop buying new ones. I should just reread the 21 authors listed here, and maybe I will.

It’s just that a bunch of new magazines came in yesterday, and there are so many interesting books being advertised, and I am certain that one of them will answer all my questions. So I will get to the books on my shelves just as soon as I add a few more to them.

Oh to be in America

Last night I participated in a panel discussion on “the religious other.” The panel was held at a Nashville Presbyterian church, so the “other” consisted of three Jews and two Muslims. Chance Dillon, my intern at Wisdom House, moderated. He did (in case he is reading this) a marvelous job.

Two things of interest happened during the event. The first was the realization that the same year one of the Jewish panelist’s sister was making aliyah (moving to Israel) to live freely as a Jew (1958), the father of the Palestinian American panelist was flying to the United States from Palestine (by which she meant Israel) because he could no longer live freely as a Muslim.

This was a moment ripe for deeper discussion, but it passed almost unnoticed. I am working with Chance to bring the two of them together over lunch to explore this further.

The second thing of note was a question a Christian man asked me after the event about the hijab worn by the Muslim woman. He wanted to know why she has to flaunt her Islam, and why she just doesn’t dress American. Her dress makes it clear that she doesn’t want to be American, and maybe wants Americans to be Muslims. The idea of a Muslim American just didn’t make sense.

I suggested he ask her, but he was intimidated. I said that it was an affirmation of her religion, and that to be American is to honor the differences this man wanted to erase. He disagreed. I pointed to my yarmulke and asked why this doesn’t bother him when the hijab does. He said it did bother him, but it was harder to notice. We both made mention of the fact that the Imam was dressed in a blue business suit.

I was wearing all black (as I usually do) either in imitation of my rebbe or in honor of Johnnie Cash. I’m never quite sure which.

What troubled me was my inability to make a convincing case that Americans are not monolithic. We think, eat, speak, act, dress, pray, and play in many different ways. He could see only one: Republican, pork, drawl, haughty, golfer, Protestant, and… well, I couldn’t tell what his game of choice was so perhaps he was a free-thinker after all.

Anyway, just asking the question about the hijab is a huge step in the right direction. For many Americans listening to a Muslim, let alone talking with one, is a novel and potentially life-changing event. I applaud meetings like this and urge all of you to sponsor them in your own houses of worship. And, in case you are wondering, the next one with this group will take place in the Imam’s mosque.

Invisible Women--Modesty at Its Most Divine

Everyone knows that religious men prefer their women modest. For some Muslims this means burying their women beneath burkahs allowing only a slit or mesh veil through which they are allowed to see and be seen. Pretty severe, but we Jews do them one better: we erase them altogether.

At least that is what Der Tzitung and Der Voch, two Orthodox Jewish publications, did when they erased Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and counter terrorism adviser Audrey Tomason from the iconic White House photo showing the nation’s leaders in the Situation Room during the operation to kill Osama bin Laden. According to Der Tzitung, printing photographs of women is contrary to Jewish laws of modesty. While Muslim men prefer not to see real women, Jews worry about seeing virtual women. Which leads to a wonderful business opportunity: Orthodox porn.

If I can get the backing, I plan to publish maideleh (Yiddish for young woman), a glossy magazine featuring naked Jewish women. Not being allowed to publish photos of said women, however, means I wouldn't have to hire either models or photographers. And the more women I featured, the more blank pages I could publish, keeping printing costs to a bare minimum (pun intended). Jewish guys would just have to imagine the naked women I’m not actually photographing or printing. Hey these are God's laws, not mine.

Maideleh will be the perfect porn mag for married Jewish men. When "the wife" sees them looking at it, they can say with confidence, "Don’t worry, I only read it for the articles."

Reading, Writing, and Body Counts: New Rules on Campus

Two Republican state senators are trying to pass a bill making it legal for students, faculty, and staff to carry guns on college campuses in Tennessee. The governor and Senate Speaker, also Republicans, are opposed to it. So too is the president of Middle Tennessee State University where I and my family work.

I for one like the bill. I think everyone on campus should be armed.

As a Jew, I would carry an Israeli made Uzi on campus as a sign of my Jewish affiliation. I would urge others to carry other ethnically associated weapons. Germans should carry Lugers, Brits Walther PPK’s. I would also keep a nine millimeter handgun in a holster on my hip, and another in the waistband of my jeans in the small of back.

I would of course be well trained in the use of these weapons, but I would have no hesitancy regarding their use: anyone who threatened my safety would be fair game. Unfortunately I am easily frightened. Knowing that everyone on campus may be carrying a gun, and knowing that I cannot know in advance who will suddenly snap and start shooting, I would feel justified in drawing and perhaps even firing my weapon whenever anyone abruptly put a hand into pocket or purse. True they might simply be reaching for a pen, but I cannot be sure, and must strike first to protect myself.

There are over 2500 faculty and staff on my campus, and around 27,000 students. As of 2006 1% of Americans were in jail at any given time. I think this means that 300 people on campus are potential criminals. But that doesn’t count all those criminals who avoid capture and plead out. So, without bothering with actual facts, let’s assume that 10% are potential killers. That is 3000 people out to kill me. Would you walk unarmed into a crowd of 3000 people bent on your destruction?

Of course not, but as a professor, I have no choice. Everyday I step onto the campus seething with thousands of would be killers I am risking my life. I have a right to protect myself. And because I can’t be sure which of the people I pass on campus are among the 3000 murderers enrolled or employed by MTSU, I am within my rights to shoot anyone who scares me.

I would, of course, grant the same rights to everyone else, so I expect to hear lots of gunfire during the day once this bill becomes law. I would of course have no choice but to return fire in the general direction of the shoots I hear, and that will make things all the more interesting.

You may or may not agree with me. I don’t care. This law will be passed eventually. And when it is, I for one am going to buy lots of stock in companies that make bullets.

God and Human Bondage

As we gear up to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Civil War the issue of slavery is once again a hot topic in my neighborhood. Was the Confederacy all about slavery or was it all about state’s rights? It was about both: the slave holding states were concerned that they would lose their rights to own slaves.

This is not simply my opinion. As a loyal, albeit transplanted southerner, I take as my touchstone the immortal words of Alexander H. Stephens, Vice President of the Confederate States of America, who, in a March 21, 1861 speech in Savanna, GA contrasted North and South and said the following:

“Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth… [Those who oppose slavery are] attempting to make things equal which the Creator had made unequal. In the conflict thus far, success has been on our side, complete throughout the length and breadth of the Confederate States. It is upon this, as I have stated, our social fabric is firmly planted; and I cannot permit myself to doubt the ultimate success of a full recognition of this principle throughout the civilized and enlightened world.”

Not only was slavery the cornerstone of the Confederacy, the hope was that it would spread throughout the world as a hallmark of civilized and enlightened society. Who are we to disagree with Vice President Stephens? How dare we dismiss or twist his words to suit modern liberal sensibilities? Even pretending that we succeeded from the North for any reason other than slavery is to give to the North the moral high ground. We had to lie to our brave soldiers and tell them they were defending their homeland against Yankee aggression, for if we told them the truth, if we admitted that we were sending them to be slaughtered to protect the rights of the wealthy few to own slaves as a means of maintaining their wealth and power, they would not have gone bravely to their deaths. We had to lie to our soldiers; but let us not lie to ourselves.

As we commemorate, and in some circles celebrate, the formation of the Confederate States of America, let us not whitewash the principle for which so many hundreds of thousands of brave and loyal Southerners died. Let us not take the cowardly route and hide behind the notion that this was a war over states rights, but let us make it clear that the right we demanded was the right to enslave and own Negroes.

You may or may not agree with God’s great truth of white superiority and His great principle of slavery upon which the Confederacy was founded, but do not defame our heritage by pretending that we went to war for anything less than God and human bondage.

The Empty Tomb

Today is Easter Sunday, and I am going to preach at a local church. My plan is to share my new understanding of Good Friday with them (see the previous post, “A New View of Good Friday”) and then reinterpret Easter in light of it.

Good Friday, in my new reading, is the day God dies for His sins—the sin of creating a world filled with unnecessary suffering and where evil is perpetrated in His Name. God dies so that we cannot kill in His Name anymore.

On Easter we find the tomb of God empty. To me the tomb is for Christians what the Holy of Holies is for Jews, and the Ka’aba is for Muslims: an empty space speaking to the ineffability of God. In the Abrahamic religions God cannot be imaged, so of course their sacred space should be empty of images.

If God dies for His sins, the sins He commits by sanctioning evil in His Name, the only way He can express this is to step beyond Names and Naming—to become something that humans cannot use or manipulate to their own ends: the Tao that cannot be named.

The problem with Christianity is that Christians just can’t do away with images. So Jesus appears after the Resurrection. And even when he ascends to Heaven He promises to return—and this time as anything but the Prince of Peace. The Second Coming, the ultimate reinstitution of the Image of God is going to be the ultimate slaughter of those who worship a different Image of God. The Second Coming undoes Good Friday and makes a mockery of Easter Sunday. With the theology of the Second Coming God learns a harsh lesson: people want to slaughter one another, and if God Himself won’t condone it anymore, they will invent a new God who will.

The hate-filled blood spattered Jesus of Revelation is the hope of those who cannot follow God and atone for their sins. The God of Good Friday is sorry. The God of Easter Sunday is free. The God of the Second Coming is psycho.

So, if you buy my new reading of Good Friday and kill the Gods of hate at whose altars we humans have worshipped for millennia, and if you buy my new reading of Easter where the tomb is empty as a sign that we are free of Gods made in our own image and designed to sanction our own madness, what shall you do with this day?

My suggestion is simple: look deeply into your self, your family, your community, your nation, your faith, and free yourself of any image that sanctions evil, even and especially if it does so in the Name of God. If you wish to believe in God, fine, but believe in the God who is empty.

Easter is a holy day of hope, but let our hope not be in some coming horror. If we are to affirm hope, let us affirm hope in freedom, love, justice, and humility. Let us say, “The Lord is Risen and so is our Heart: risen beyond fear and hatred, beyond heaven and hell, beyond vindictive ideologies masquerading as Truth.” Anything less is just more of the same.

A New View of Good Friday

Today is Good Friday, the anniversary of the crucifixion of Jesus. For Jews this was a time fraught with danger. As Christians poured into their churches to hear how the Jews murdered their God, they often poured out of their churches to murder Jews. This is less likely to happen today, though I had a fascinating conversation with a Catholic priest the other day who suggested the times they are a changin’.

It seems the Church is changing the phrase “Christ died for all” to “Christ died for many.” In other words He died only for those who believe in Him, everyone else is damned. The Jews being the consummate outsiders are not included in Christ’s salvific act of sacrifice, and this may, my friend said, lead to renewed anti-Semitism.

While I don’t expect my Catholic neighbors to engage in pogroms anytime soon, he does raise an interesting point: for whom did Christ die?

I don’t believe in substitutionary atonement: no one can pay for another’s sin. I believe in the Gospel According to Pottery Barn: you break it; you buy it. So let me suggest a radically new understanding of Good Friday: God didn’t die for our sins, God died for God’s sins.

God finally realized that He was responsible for the sins of the world. It was His rejection of Cain that led to the killing of Abel. It was He who murdered almost all life in the Flood. It was He who sanctioned genocide after genocide, and called for the slaughter of hundreds of millions of animals. After centuries of this madness, He was, as the Hebrew prophets revealed, sick of it. He just wanted people to be good to one another. But what could He do to make amends and get this message across?

God chose to become one of us to teach us the new Way: the way of love. No temples, no priests, no rabbis, just people loving one another. And then, to make amends for all the killing He had caused, He allowed Himself to be killed as well.

God died for His sins, not ours. And having died for His sins, God can no longer be used as an excuse for our sins. God changed when He died at the Cross. Unfortunately we did not. We kept to the old ways, the ways of worshipping gods who commend and command what would otherwise be thought of as evil. We made of God’s atoning cross a sword with which to continue the bloodstained madness of the now dead god.

So Good Friday must be reinterpreted. Good Friday is the day that God died for His sins that you and I might stop killing in His Name. Good Friday should be the day we stop fostering hate and hurt and murderous acts in His Name. It should be, but I doubt it will be.

I am a Kosher Pescatarian

I am a kosher pescatarian: I don’t eat animals and do eat those fish permitted by Jewish law. I say this for three reasons. First: I feel guilty about eating fish, and admitting it makes me feel less so; second, I feel self-righteous about not eating meat, and proclaiming it makes me feel more so; and third, to introduce my response to a newly proposed Dutch law requiring that all animals killed in Dutch slaughterhouses be stunned into unconsciousness before slaughtering. Jewish and Muslim law do not allow stunning, so this law will outlaw kosher and halal slaughtering in the Netherlands.

The bill is supported by right wing anti-immigrant parties who want to make the Netherlands inhospitable to Muslims (Jews are collateral damage) in coalition with animal rights activists who would like to end the slaughter altogether, but are happy for any measure they believe will alleviate animal suffering.

Kosher and halal slaughtering also seeks to minimize animal suffering, so why can’t secular and religious authorities work together to achieve a common goal? If stunning actually alleviates suffering, why not make it part of kosher and halal slaughtering? Why do we Jews expend untold amounts of energy and ingenuity to get around Sabbath laws we find annoying, and none at all when it comes to killing our fellow sentient beings? I suggest we have lost our moral compass, and have made a fetish of Iron Age technology.

This is the danger of all religions that look to the past not only for guidance (which is often helpful) but also for authority (which is often unhelpful and even wicked). When we allow ancient mores and technologies to trump those of our own time (unless it inconveniences us, in which case they are suddenly deemed irrelevant), we have trapped ourselves in a religion that may survive but cannot thrive.

I welcome the challenge to kosher and halal slaughtering. I urge rabbis and imams to find more compassionate ways to kill our fellow creatures, and challenge them to take the next step and proclaim the eating of meat contrary to the wills of Yah and Allah. Just don’t outlaw fish anytime soon; I’m having tuna for dinner.

Tonight is the first night of Pesach, Passover. Jews around the world will gather to retell our founding story: how we were unjustly enslaved in Egypt and how God liberated us after crushing the Egyptians with unbelievable horrors. I just can’t get behind this story.

First of all we Jews were not innocent victims of the Egyptians. Read the closing chapters of Genesis to discover that Joseph and Pharaoh used the seven years of famine to strip the Egyptian people of everything they had: their land, their dignity, their freedoms. Only three groups thrived during this period: Pharaoh, his Priests, and the Hebrew people. I am not proud of this, nor can I herald Joseph as my hero.

So tonight before we get drunk on our innocence, let us atone for our guilt—for our having collaborated with Pharaoh at the expense of the Egyptian people—by seeing where we may be collaborating with evil today, and ending that collaboration during the week of Pesach.

Skip to the plagues. This was a war between YHVH and the Gods of Egypt. Each of the ten plagues is the defeat of an Egyptian God: from Hapi, God of the Nile; to Ra, God of the Sun; to Pharaoh, God on Earth. I love stories of Gods at War, but the collateral damage to the Egyptian people is untenable. The ancient rabbis knew this. That’s why they tell the story of God opposing the Hebrews’ celebration of the drowning of Pharaoh’s army, and why they commanded us to diminish our cups of wine that we not drink to the suffering of others.

Our liberation cost the Egyptian people dearly. Let that sober us up, and more importantly let it shift our attention to others, such as the Palestinians, who continue to pay a heavy price for our freedom.

For me the real heroes of Pesach are the women. Passover is a women’s revolution against the madness of Pharaohs and Gods: the midwives Shifrah and Puah refuse to murder the Hebrew baby boys, Moses’ mother Yocheved saves her son from the soldiers sent to kill him, Pharaoh’s daughter defies her father and raises Moses as her own son in his own house, Moses sister Miriam brings Yocheved to nurse him establishing a silent conspiracy of Moses’ two mommies against the all-powerful Pharaoh, and Moses’ wife Zipporah saves her husband from a God gone mad who seeks to murder her husband even as he makes his way to Egypt to save the Hebrew people. Had any one of these women failed, the story would end in tragedy rather than triumph.

Let tonight be more than a celebration of an ancient liberation from evil. Let it be a time to admit to and liberate ourselves from our own collaboration with evil; a time to admit to and end the suffering we cause others; a time to challenge the power of gods— religious, economic, political— and to celebrate the power of the few to do justly regardless of the odds.

Chag sameach Pesach.

Is God Necessary for Morality?

Is God necessary for morality? The question came up in class the other day. It is a perennial question, though one that is essentially beside the point. Whether you believe God decides what is right and wrong, or you believe that people do so, you still have to choose a moral system. It isn’t as if God or people offer just one.

If you say God decides what is right and wrong you have to decide which god is God before you can follow the moral system of that God. Most people follow the gods of their parents, but is this really a sound enough basis on which to determine one’s morality?

If you take another track and look for the common moral themes among religions you might come up with a generic list of values that all gods seem to support, but no religion agrees as to how to apply these values, so you are again forced to choose. For example all religions support modesty regarding women, yet for some Jews this means married women should wear wigs, while for some Muslims it means women should cover both head and face. Who’s right? And what do we make of women who refuse to do either? Are they immodest?

I think the best we humans can do vis a vis morality is to follow the advice of Rabbi Hillel. Without any reference to God, he simply defined the entirety of Torah as not doing to others what you do not want others to do to you. If you don’t want to be judged, don’t judge. If you don’t want to be killed, don’t kill. If you don’t want others to burn your holy book or outlaw your religion, don’t do the same to others. If you don’t want someone to discriminate against you because of your race, color, creed, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, politics, etc., then don’t engage in discrimination on these grounds yourself.

Honestly, I can’t think of a better moral guide than this.

Judaism's Mission Statement

[I was asked recently to articulate why Judaism matters. Here is my reply:]

Now HaShem said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. [As a consequence of your going] I will make of you a people vital to life, and I will bless you, and spread your reputation [as a people devoted to justice and compassion], so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse [those who follow the way of justice and compassion will be blessed with justice and compassion, those who do not will be cursed with injustice and cruelty]; and through you all the earth’s families [human and otherwise] shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:1-3, my rendering)

This is the mission statement of the Jewish people. The Hebrew translated here as “Go” is lech lecha, and literally means to walk to your self, implying both an external and an internal journey. To take this journey we are challenged to leave behind nationalism, tribalism, and family baggage. Judaism is not about conforming to the past, but about living God's command in the present. It isn't about fitting in, but about moving on.

Where we are to go, the “land” mentioned here, is not revealed. While some insist it is Israel, I suggest it is something more (which is not the same as saying it is something else): a state of mind. In either case, this is a journey based on radical trust. We will be shown our destination only when we arrive at it.

Our importance as a people depends on our taking this journey into the unknown. We are called to be the boundary–crossers (this may be the original meaning of Habiru/Hebrew); we are the ones who "boldly go where no one has gone before." But the purpose of the journey is not to become great, but to become a vehicle through which all of the earth’s families will be blessed. Our goal isn't to conquer or convert, but to bless and bring blessings to the entire world, every family of every species. We do this by embodying compassion: engaging the world justly, lovingly, and humbly (Micah 6:8).

When asked to articulate the entirety of Torah while standing on one foot Rabbi Hillel said, “What is hateful to you do not do to another. This is the whole of the Torah; all the rest is commentary. Now go and study it.” (Tractate Shabbat 32a).

I take Hillel literally. The entire Torah, the entirety of Judaism, is a guide to compassion when we read and live it as such. If your reading of Torah and/or your living of Judaism does not make you more just, loving, and humble then you are misreading Torah and not living Judaism.

This is why I am a Jew: At its best Judaism challenges me to drop the known and step into the unknown; to be a blessing and a vehicle for blessing so that all life benefits from my life; and to embody a specific level of consciousness that embraces the world with justice, love, and humility. True, Judaism is often not at its best, but I can find enough examples past and present to keep me loyal to the mission.

Kahn-ing the System

Safoorah Kahn is suing the Berkeley, Ill school board for religious discrimination. The Obama Justice Department is siding with her. Wrong call.

In August of 2008, after working as a math teacher for only none months, Ms. Kahn requested three weeks leave in December to go on the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca each Muslim is to make at least once in her life, health and finances permitting. Ms. Kahn understood her religion to mandate going as soon as one can afford, a position that no religious authority supports. She petitioned for the time off, and the school board said no. Ms. Kahn then quit her job, went on the Hajj, and upon her return sued the school board for religious discrimination.

This is bullshit. I teach, and December is crunch time. Getting a substitute teacher to cover for Ms. Kahn would have been disruptive to the students. It ruins continuity, and if she was building toward some goal at the end of the semester, her leaving would have made achieving it next to impossible.

I can understand that people want to scam the system, and how religion—any religion—can be useful when doing so. What I don’t understand is why the Justice Department is supporting Ms. Kahn against the School Board. This isn’t religious discrimination. Ms. Kahn could have saved her hajj money, and worked out a agreement with her school so that she could go on the hajj in a year or two. This would have been respectful of her religion, her job, and her students.

It is wrong for someone to take a job, and then dodge the requirements of that job and seek to avoid the consequences by hiding behind bogus claims of religious discrimination. If an observant Jew takes a job that requires working on Saturday (the Jewish Sabbath), and doesn’t tell her employer before she is hired that she cannot work Saturdays, she has no right to take Saturdays off or to complain about religious discrimination. If your religion makes doing your job impossible, go find a different job.

In Buddhism there is the obligation of Right Livelihood. Buddhists are prohibited from doing jobs that cause suffering. I’m not saying that all Buddhists follow their religion, but those that do shouldn’t take jobs that violate it. We should use this as a principle for all peoples: don’t take a job you can’t or won’t do because of your religious convictions. If pharmacists can’t give birth control pills, or doctors can’t perform abortions to save the life of a mother—go teach math. I hear there is a job opening in Berkeley, Ill.

Who We Are

I watched President Obama commit us to endless war last night, and it made me sick. Speaking of the obligation of America to intervene in Libya Mr. Obama said, “To brush aside America’s responsibility as a leader and, more profoundly, our responsibilities to our fellow human beings under such circumstances would have been a betrayal of who we are.”

Is he kidding? A betrayal of who we are? We betray who we are so often that I suspect it isn’t really who we are. We lied our way into the Mexican War, we lied our way into Vietnam, we lied our way into Iraq, we stand idly by while our allies in Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain go after their protestors, we turned a blind eye to to Rwanda genocide, we refuse to acknowledge the Armenian genocide, and are turning a blind eye right now to the Ivory Coast.

We are not the knight in shining armor riding to the rescue of oppressed peoples around the globe. We are a military/financial empire that pursues its interests and gets into bed with anyone who will give us what we want, regardless of what they do to their own people.

I’m not saying we are wrong to intervene in Libya. I don’t know. I suspect it will end badly because it almost always ends badly. But let’s not pretend we are doing this as part of some obligation to humanity. The hypocrisy in this speech was so overwhelming that I was shocked the President got through the speech with a straight face.

The Bush Doctrine said that we could attack anyone we decided was threatening us. The Obama Doctrine says we can attack anyone we decide threatening their own people. That just about covers the entire globe. We can now go to war with anyone we want, anywhere we want, anytime we want. We are now on a permanent and global war footing.

This is not what I voted for when I voted for President Obama in 2008. If I wanted permanent war I would have voted for Senator McCain. It seems that it no longer matters which party wins: the wars just go on forever.

God's Plan

“I’m a firm believer in God’s plan.” The woman standing by my booth in City Café is repeating this sentence like a mantra. She is talking to my waitress, and relating a medical condition that is bringing her much pain and suffering. Every two or three sentences she pauses and recites, “I’m a firm believer in God’s plan.”

It is easy to challenge this mantra. It is easy to say that this woman’s obsessive repetition of the phrase suggests a desperate wish to believe. But as my waitress affirms the truth of her belief, she relaxes a bit, and just weeps.

Does God have a plan for her life? This depends on how you define “God.” For this woman God is a being larger and more powerful than humans but not so different from them. God has thoughts and feelings; God has a plan, and it is always for the good. Even when it hurts.

For me, God is reality. Does reality have a plan? Not the way this woman thinks. For me God’s plan is simply to be God: to manifest all possibility, and, I believe, to manifest beings with the capability of knowing reality as God. In other words, God is the process of Self-expression and God-realization.

I am a believer no less than the woman in the restaurant. But my belief would not provide the comfort that this woman seeks. So when my waitress turns to me and asks, “What do you think, Rabbi? Does God have a plan for her life?” I replied, “Of course, and I’m glad you (speaking directly to the woman) are aware of this.”

“But what is His plan,” the waitress asks. “What does God want of her?”

“The same thing God want’s of all of us: to love one another, to come to each other’s aid, to allow our suffering to crack our hearts wide open so that the more we suffer the more we love; the more we hurt the less hurt we cause; the more we trust God the less we judge one another. I can’t tell you why God has taken your life in this direction, but I can assure you that God has only one goal in mind: to make you a greater vehicle for love.”

The women stared at me for a moment, then the suffering woman cried, hugged the waitress, mouthed a silent “thank you” to me, and left the café. Did I believe what I said? Does it matter?

What do you believe? What would you have said?

Jewish Apathy? Who Cares?

Haaretz.com has an interesting article entitled “Why liberal Judaism is in free fall” (www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/jerusalem-babylon-why-liberal-judaism-is-in-free-fall-1.344102)

The gist of the essay is that apathy is killing liberal Judaism. Maybe, but why? Most rabbis I talk with seem to think it is a cosmetic problem: more Hebrew, more hand-clapping and singing, a newer version of the siddur (prayer book), and the next thing you know Liberal Jews are as enthusiastic as the Satmar Hasidim. I doubt it.

Liberal Jews are like voters in an off year election: most of them don’t turn out (and by “them” I mean “us” and by “us” I mean me). The problem is that for liberal Jews it is always an off year election. Give them a reason to show up, however, and they might.

But maybe there is no reason. Maybe there is nothing (short of pogroms in their neighborhoods) that will bring liberal Jews to shul. If, as is true of most liberal Jews, you don’t believe that the Jews are God’s Chosen obligated to the 613 Commandments and central to the salvation of the planet and her peoples, it is hard to drag your butt to shul on Saturday to wade through hundreds of pages of mostly meaningless and often repetitive liturgy.

And yet Judaism and Jewish culture are hardly moribund. I attended a fabulous Havdallah service in St. Louis featuring the Hasidic-jazz fusion of my friend Rabbi James Goodman; the Jewish music scene in New York and LA is thriving; Jewish art, literature, and poetry are alive and well. Maybe it is just corporate religion that is on life-support.

Maybe we need to create events rather than communities. Maybe communities cannot be artificially erected and funded through dues. Maybe the old model of “If you build it (the synagogue) they will come (and pay off the mortgage) no longer works. Maybe Judaism has to happen differently. Maybe. I'm only asking questions here. And I know I'll hear from some shul-lovers who say everything is fine. Maybe it is.

I’d love to hear examples of where Judaism is working for you. Please share them in the comments section.

Happy Purim

There are many intriguing aspects to Purim, the Jewish holy day celebrating the salvation of the Jews of Persia through the daring of Queen Esther. First there is the fact that intermarriage is central to the story: if Jewish Esther had not married the Gentile King the Jews would have died. Second, there is the fact that God plays no role in the story: it is Esther who saves her people, not God. Third, there is the tradition of allowing cross-dressing and the skewing of rabbis as part of the holy day fun. Fourth there is the custom of giving gifts and tzedakah (charity). And fifth there is the tradition of getting so drunk on Purim that you can no longer tell the difference between Mordecai and Haman, i.e. Good and Evil. Couple these with the fact that the entire story is fictional and based on the Babylonian Gods Ishtar (Esther) and Marduk (Mordecai) you have a deeply compelling tale of existential spirituality.

Unfortunately too many Jews think of Purim, which falls on March 19-20 this year, as a kids’ holy day—sans the alcohol. In the interest of full disclosure, I have never gotten drunk. I don’t even like Rum Raisin ice cream, so getting beyond good and evil with the help of alcohol falls outside my experience. And yet…

The relationship of good and evil is central to much of my thinking. I believe in both, and see each as a necessary corollary of the other. Just as you cannot have front without back, so you cannot have good without evil. They go together. Good and evil are part of the binary dynamic of the phenomenal world, the world that you and I experience moment to moment. So what might it mean to go beyond these?

That would be a wonderful discussion for adults to have during Purim. Raising the level of our holy days in this way would capture the imagination and intellect of adult Jews and help bring about a revival of Judaism. Using Purim each year to discuss the state of moral discourse and to explore ever more deeply the nature of good and evil would help return Judaism to relevancy in the lives of many Jews for whom it is largely inconsequential.

So whatever else you do this Purim, make some time to talk with friends about good and evil. And for those Jews seeking to blur the divide between Mordecai and Haman, remember: Jews don’t let Jews drive drunk.

Unchain Their Hearts

Today is the Fast of Esther, commemorating Queen Esther’s call to her fellow Jews to fast on her behalf as she prepares to risk her life to save theirs. It is also International Chained Woman Day referring to those Jewish women (agunot) who are chained to husbands who either refuse to give them a divorce or who are missing (in battle or otherwise) but cannot be proven dead, and who are therefore married to the missing for the rest of their lives. (Women have no right to divorce in Judaism but do have the right to refuse a divorce their husbands may desire, so that men, too, can be chained.)

Many Orthodox rabbis work with women’s groups to find a way out of this nonsense, but estimates put the number of chained of women in the thousands.

Does this sound right to you? Does it make any sense to maintain a Bronze Age marriage bond that enslaves spouses to one another? Isn’t this just the kind of madness with which people who worry about Sharia are concerned?

Here in Tennessee I have spoken with many Jews who are worried about Sharia (Islamic law), and unconcerned about halacha (Jewish law). Why? Either because they believe halacha comes from God, or they have abandoned halachic observance, and choose to live their lives as modern rather than Bronze Age Jews.

Why do modern men and women voluntarily bind themselves to halacha and Sharia? The answer is that they believe this is what God wants of them. But this only begs the question: why believe in a god who demands this of you?

The answer to the craziness of religious laws isn’t legalized oppression of religious expression, but free men and women walking away from such craziness. As long as we in the United States maintain a country that protects both freedom of religion and freedom from religion, we don’t have to worry about either halacha or Sharia forcing us to live in ways most of us find repugnant. But this requires a knowledge of and support for the First Amendment that more and more Americans seem to be abandoning. The danger isn’t Muslim or Jewish orthodoxies, or even Christian fundamentalists who find freedom of religion a stumbling block to their version of a God fearing America. The danger is that we liberals will be out-maneuvered and lose the very rights that make the United States the exceptional experiment it is.

The Real Mau Mau Revolution and What It Means for America

I am incensed over the current attacks on Governor Mike Huckabee by the left wing drive-by lame stream Islamo-terror media. Yes, the Governor misspoke when he said President Obama grew up in Kenya, but that does not mean the Governor was wrong when he said that President Obama, his father, and his grandfather have a very different understanding of the Mau Mau revolution than that of most Americans. They do, and it is time they admitted it. All three of them.

Governor Huckabee is a master of history. True, believing that the world is only six thousand years old makes this mastery a bit easier, but the Mau Mau revolution is quite recent, taking place here in the United States only 45 years ago. No, I am not talking about the Mau Mau rebellion against British colonialism. Why should American’s care about that? We never had to deal with British colonialism, and as far as I know we are all proud members of the British Commonwealth.

The true Mau Mau revolution, the one that should strike fear in the hearts of all patriotic Americans is The Del-Tino’s 1966 hit, Papa Ooh Mau Mau in which we find the revolutionary lyric: Oom-ooma-mau-mau, papa-ooma-mau-mau. Ooma-mau-mau, papa-ooma-mau-mau. Papa-a-mau-mau, papa-ooma-mau-mau ... (you put the Ooh Mau Mau.......)

Did you catch that? “You put the ohh Mau Mau?!?” Do you know what that means? Do you know where they are going to put it? [Here’s a hint: the Bible is against putting it where they are planning to put it!] Do you know what that implies for the future of America? Do you have any idea what the Governor is talking about, and how vital it must be to the salvation of this country because the Governor is talking about it?

Neither do I, but I trust that the Governor thinks he knows what he is talking about, and that is good enough for me. As long as he thinks he is thinking I don’t have to. Indeed, none of us has to, and that is what is so great about having a President Huckabee in the White House: no history, no science, and no Papa Ooh Mau Mau. God save the Queen!

Rabbis & God: A Call for Intimacy

Carol Ochs, a wonderful teacher and spiritual guide, wrote an article in the current issue of The Reform Jewish Quarterly entitled: “Fostering a Relationship between Rabbi and God.” I had high hopes for the essay, but was very disappointed.

First Dr. Ochs says, “If we are to deepen the formation of a religious life in others, we must nurture a growing intimacy with God in ourselves. Oddly, we have to put aside the first question we may ask—What do we mean by God?— so that we can overcome the distance required for analytical thought and enter the closeness aspired to by a lover.”

This doesn’t make sense to me. Do we want to be intimate with just anyone? Is our “lover” an unknown quantity? Is there no place for reason in relationships? If we don’t define God how do we know that with which we are becoming intimate is God? If we don’t define God how can we say to a Jew who takes Jesus or Krishna as her lover that she is outside Judaism, or should this no longer concern rabbis?

Dr. Ochs goes on to say that rabbis and rabbinical students need to “return to our own personal experience of the presence of God. In this way we can wrestle with the question, “How do we relate to God, who is now the center of our reality?”

If we do not know what is meant by God, how can we speak of the presence of God? And if we do not what God is, how can we say God is now the center of our reality? And how are we supposed to return to the presence of God in the first place?

The bulk of her essay is a series of interpretations of lines pulled from the Torah, lines she finds to be “touchstones” on her “unmarked journey to a maturing relationship with God.” Despite her claim to the contrary these texts not content free, and do in fact assume a theology, one that I suspect most Jews no longer hold.

For example: “Although you intended me harm, God intended it for good” (Genesis 50:20). Clearly God is a self–conscious being who has intentions and who somehow controls our lives and does so for our own good. Most Jews don’t think this way, which is why organized Judaisms that promote this theology have less and less impact on Jews.

What Jews (and everyone else for that matter) need is a way to encounter reality at a level that transcends and transforms the narrow mind (mochin d’katnut) of self and selfishness, opens us to the spacious mind (mochin d’gadlut) of Self and selflessness, and awakens us to the truth that Alles iz Gott (all is God), understanding God as the intrinsically creative source and substance of all reality.

If I were the head of a rabbinical college I would offer students shamanic training where they learned the ecstatic kabbalistic visualizations of Abulafia, the ecstatic dancing and nigunnim (wordless melodies) of the Hasidim, the dream work of Solomon Almoni, the meditation techniques of Nachman of Breslov and Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, and how to use these and other techniques to create services and life-transition events that had the potential to transform people.

Calling rabbis to God is great. But unless we give them the tools for meeting God—not the anthropomorphic god of the Bronze Age but the timeless God who is Reality itself—the call is going to fall on deaf ears.

God Slayer No More

I rather liked being a God–slayer, so Pope Benedict XVI’s admission in his new book, Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week, that the Jews are innocent of the execution of Jesus came as a bit of a downer. I used to feel like Buffy without having to learn all that karate.

Of course Christians have murdered millions of Jews over the past 2000 years under the guise of payback for our killing God, so it wasn’t always cool. But today Christians don’t get to kill Jews anymore, though millions still look forward to other people killing all but 144,000 of us before the Second Coming, so let’s not get too excited.

Anyway, if we Jews are innocent, can we sue for damages? Even if we could, no amount of money I got from the Church would make up for my no longer being a God slayer. Especially now, when we need God slayers more than ever.

So, my thanks to the Pope for his honesty. I will write and ask him for a check, and use the money to set up a training academy for the slaying of Gods through the creative and compassionate use of the human imagination. I think I'll call it Imagine. If the Pope doesn’t respond, I’ll try Yoko.

Will People of Good Will Stand Together Against Hate?

Democracy and responsibility are not the same thing. While I welcome, support, and encourage democratic movements among all peoples, I have to recognize that they may use their new freedoms to foster ideas that I find hateful and threatening. Case in point: the return to prominence in Egypt of Sheik Yusuf al–Qaradawi, an anti-Semitic preacher of hate.

In a 2009 television interview on Al Jazeera, the Sheik claimed that Hitler was sent by Allah as an act of “divine punishment” for the “corruption” that is the Jewish people, and he hoped that Muslims would carry on this work. In a separate interview, al–Qaradawi expressed his hope that before he died he would have the opportunity to go to the “land of jihad” and shoot Jews.

Sheik Yusuf al–Qaradawi is a major player in the Islamic revival, an advisor to the Muslim Brotherhood, a media star hosting “Sharia and Life” on Al Jazeera, and a symbol of Egyptian freedom who delivered the Tahrir Square sermon on February 18 to a million Muslims. I worry that the Arab principle of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” will encourage the emerging democratic leaders to double down on Jew-hatred and use anti–Israel sentiment to cement their positions of power.

What can we do about this? First, know it is coming. Second, talk to your Muslim friends and neighbors about it. Third, ask that your local Muslim leaders take the moral high ground in this, and preemptively speak out publically to their communities and to the media in general about the evils of Jew–hatred. If they are afraid, offer to stand with them. If they refuse, think seriously about standing against them.

Liberal Jews and rabbis have long been doing the same with regard to anti–Islamic feelings among Jews and others: at this very moment, I am working against the hate–filled Tennessee law seeking to outlaw Sharia and hence Islam in the state of Tennessee. Now it is time for our Muslim colleagues to do the same for us among their fellow Muslims.

Will they? I don’t know. Challenge them, and report what you find.

The Real Danger of 2012

While millions of Americans are preparing to obsess over the end of the Mayan calendar, the real danger to America in 2012 is renewed anti–Muslim fear mongering tied to the 2012 elections. I suspect this is what is fueling a new bill introduced into the Tennessee Legislature by Sen. Bill Ketron and Rep. Judd Matheny, both Republicans, which makes following Sharia, Muslim law, a felony punishable by 15 years in prison.

“The threat from Shariah¬–based jihad and terrorism,” the bill states, “presents a real and present danger to the lawful governance of this state and to the peaceful enjoyment of citizenship by the residents of this state.” True enough; that is why we have laws prohibiting acts of violence and terrorism, regardless of the perpetrator.

Sen. Ketron and Rep. Matheny, however, aren’t seeking to strengthen laws against violence, but to criminalize Sharia, and hence Islam, as a whole. Sharia includes professing one’s faith in God and Muhammad, daily prayer, giving charity, fasting during Ramadan, and making pilgrimage to Mecca. Do we really want to criminalize these activities? Sharia also outlaws theft, murder and illicit sexual union. Would outlawing Sharia decriminalize these acts?

Sen. Ketron and Rep. Matheny have (deliberately?) equated extremist Islamic teachings for mainstream ones. While actual Sharia is a set of principles that is open to various interpretations depending on the scholars involved and the countries in which they live, their bill claims that "Sharia requires all its adherents to actively and passively support the replacement of America's constitutional republic, including the representative government of this state with a political system based upon sharia… sharia requires the abrogation, destruction, or violation of the United States and Tennessee Constitutions and the imposition of sharia through violence and criminal activity."

This interpretation of Sharia puts Sen. Ketron and Rep. Matheny in sync with Osama bin Laden, Ayman al Zawahiri, and American born jihadist Abu Mansoor al–Amriki, and if Sen. Ketron and Rep. Matheny were Muslims I would support this bill, and do everything I could to get them removed from office. But they aren’t Muslims and actual Tennessee Muslim leaders reject this interpretation of their faith. Tennessee is not in danger of becoming Saudi Arabia. Does anyone imagine that we will vote to make drinking alcohol and eating pork illegal? Are we really going to force the women of Tennessee to dress in chadors and give up driving?

This bill isn’t about protecting Americans; it is about scaring them. We are an easily frightened people, and when we are frightened we are capable of doing very bad things. As our country gears up for the next round of political insanity, anti–Muslim fear mongering will increase. Why? Because it generates votes. If such fear mongering were not a staple of American politics I would say we are witnessing the end of our democracy. But we aren’t. This is simply the sad way too many of our politicians play the game.

Meaning and Suffering

Last Friday I attended a lecture by New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman. During the talk he mentioned that he had abandoned his fundamentalist Christian faith because he was unable to reconcile its belief in a good and interventionist God, with all the suffering he saw in the world. I understand Dr. Ehrman’s problem, but opt for a different solution.

My own position is simple: God is not good. Neither is God bad. God is just God, Reality. We humans invent the categories of good and bad: good is what we like, bad is what we don’t like. Different people have different lists of likes and dislikes, and some among us insist that their lists come from God. God never says otherwise, so their claim can be ignored or denied, but never refuted.

As a student of the Bible I have trouble believing that God is opposed to suffering. God drowns almost all humanity in Genesis, terrorizes the Egyptian people, and murders their first born sons in Exodus, and then goes on to order the genocide of the indigenous peoples of the Promised Land.

Causing suffering is God’s MO: look what He is willing to put His Son through just to keep Himself from condemning all of humanity once again. God could have simply forgiven humanity, he didn’t need the torture and death of Jesus. Or did He? The Jewish and Christian Bibles make it clear that God needs the death of innocents (animals, babies, Jesus, etc.) to assuage His wrath. So who says God is anti-suffering?

I find the Book of Job to be the most honest book in the Bible. Job suffers because God wants him to suffer. In his conversation with Job God makes it clear that suffering is part of life, and there is nothing anyone (including God) can do about it. That insight was enough for Job, and he found comfort in the chaos of life. I accept the truth of Job, but I want something more: I want the chutzpah of Abraham.

When God tells Abraham of the coming destruction of Sodom, Abraham demands that the Judge of all the world should himself act justly (Genesis 18:25) . Killing the innocent along with the guilty is wrong. God agrees, though both he and Abe are willing to let the city die if ten good people can’t be found within its gates.

Dr. Ehrman left Christianity because its loving God seemed false. I have yet to leave Judaism because its God—Job’s God—seems all too true.

Judaism is (for me) a blending of Abraham and Job. Like Job I know that suffering and injustice are inescapable, and like Abraham (and the Prophets) I fight against them anyway. Judaism is a rebellion against reality: making meaning in a universe that transcends meaning. It is a rebellion that cannot be won, yet cannot be abandoned (It is not for us to complete the task, but neither are we free to abandon it—Rabbi Tarfon, Avot 2:21) . Our messiah is always coming and never arrives because our vision of a perfect world is always a hope and never a reality.

Suffering does not drive me from Judaism, it confirms the need for it.

Peace Treety

With all the turmoil going on in Egypt and other Muslim countries I am being constantly asked about future hopes for peace between Israel and her Arab neighbors. While I hope for peace I doubt it will happen in my lifetime. This is because for many the battle isn’t earthly but cosmic. It is a war between Allah and YHVH and their respective armies of the faithful. There are only two ways to end a cosmic conflict: one God wins and desimates the people of the other God, or people stop allowing themselves to be manipulated by Gods altogether. I can’t see the latter happening, so I take seriously this Hadith of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him):

Abu Huraira reported Allah’s Messenger as saying:

“Judgment Day will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them, until the Jews hide behind the tree and the stone, and the tree and the stone will say: ‘Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him:’ – but the Gharqad tree will not say this, for it is the tree of the Jews.”

This is a good news/bad news Hadith. The bad news is that most Jews will die. This isn't unique to Islam. Some of my Christian friends tell me the same thing: all but 144,000 Jews must die in order for Jesus to return. There is just something about the death of Jews that turns some Gods on. The good news is that there is a tree of the Jews. I had no idea.

It turns out the Gharqad tree is Arabic for the boxthorn, a tree of the nightshade family, of which there are ninety species. I don’t know why this tree loves the Jews, but I am glad it does. All those other trees and stones are antiSemites—damn you, Magnolia tree in my backyard! Curse you Maple tree in my front yard!

I don’t know about you, but I’m going to start planting Gharqad trees everywhere. And while you may think me silly, you can at least see why I say there will be no peace in the Middle East. When the future depends on talking trees, you can be certain that the insanity and violence of people and their Gods is too much for what little rationality we have left.

[Case in point: anti-Jewish protests in Tunisia: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/142405]

Live Free and Fart

I get a lot of scam emails. You know, the ones that ask you to help a Nigerian woman cash in on her husband’s millions by paying a bribe to the bank president. I’ve worked with several of these women, and these things never pan out. That’s how I know they’re scams. But since so many people are trying this, I assume some people are making money at it, so I have come up with two similar scams that I would like you to help me beta-test. Please share the following two letters.

My name is Howard Thachapanda. I am a citizen of Malawi, and I am in grave danger. My problem is simple: I fart. I fart a lot. And I make a lot of noise and emit terrible odors when I do so. Which is a lot. My country is about to make farting a crime, and I fear arrest at any moment. I have tried hiding, but the noise and smell of my farts gives me away no matter where I hide. I am contacting you because I know you are person who understands both farting and freedom. I have almost enough money to escape my country, and I am hoping you can supply the rest. It is only $50 dollars. If you can help please reply to this email, and I will ask for your bank account numbers, social security number, and the name of the dwarf who turns straw into gold in the Brothers Grimm fairy tale. Please help me. And soon. I had a large plate of beans just moments ago and I fear the police are patrolling near-by.

If you don’t feel comfortable pretending to be a citizen of Malawi, try this variant:

My name is J. Morris. I am a United States citizen living in Malawi. I am a mild mannered reporter working for a major metropolitan newspaper, and I am about to be tried in Malawi for the crime of farting. It was an accident, as I understood the law against farting, but I could not find a rest room and was forced to fart on the street. I did not know the man standing next to me was with the Malawi secret police. I was being targeted because I was secretly interviewing leaders of the Live Free and Fart movement in Malawi. I need to raise money for my defense. I was given your name along with several others because you are a champion of freedom, and, so I have been told, a fart sufferer. If you can help me, please respond to this email and we will figure out how much I can take you for. God bless you. And God bless America. And God bless Beano.

So please try these out and let me know which of them works the best. Any money you make from these is yours to keep as a “thank you” for being part of this product testing effort. If you do reply to this post please include your bank account numbers, social security number, and the name of the dwarf who turns straw into gold in the Brothers Grimm fairy tale.

Thanks.

Keynote for TN State Interfaith Harmony Breakfast 2011

[I gave this talk this morning at the Tennessee State Interfaith Harmony Week Breakfast. For more on the week check our website: http://www.interfaithharmonybreakfasts.org]

There are two kinds of Interfaith programs: the safe and the frightening. The safe leave us untouched; we are same persons going in as we are coming out. The frightening leave us not only touched but transformed; we are different coming out then we were going in.

In the safe program representatives from various religions set forth the key teachings and practices of their respective faiths while their fellow panelists nod politely, pretending to some universal agreement that we know doesn’t exist if for no other reason than if it did exist, it would render our religions redundant.

Safe gatherings avoid both controversy and real conversation. They are not opportunities for dialogue, and focus on serial monologue instead.

Now, lest you think I am opposed to this kind of gathering, let me say quite clearly that I am not opposed. On the contrary: I believe there is a real need for safe Interfaith programming. For some of us just sitting on the same dais with members of other faiths is a breakthrough, let alone finding some common ground of agreement with them. I am not asking people to go further than they can. I am only interested in challenging them to go as far as they can. And for some of us, the safe is nowhere near far enough.

The deeper, scarier Interfaith dialogue to which I am committed happens when people of different faiths engage with one another in the realm Martin Buber called “the between.” Standing in “the between” you no longer follow a script; you are no longer an apologist for your faith, but a seeker of that Truth toward which all faiths may point and no faith can own. Standing in “the between” you cannot know in advance what you are going to say, because you are responding to the unknown and fundamentally unknowable. It is by standing together in “the between” that we share the possibility of hearing something new, and being changed by it.

Those of us who do this dangerous work need an understanding of religion that allows such meeting to happen. Let me share my own understanding as a means of starting a conversation on the promise of Interfaith.

I approach the world’s religions the way I approach the world’s languages. First, while we might say that the capacity for human language is God-given, specific languages are human creations. Second, there is no right or wrong language, no true language or false language. There are only a multiplicity of languages that help those who speak them to make sense of life and plant meaning in its midst.

Languages, like religions, differ. They have different grammars, emphases, and tones. They each see the world in slightly and sometimes vastly different ways. Hence there are things you can say in French that you just cannot say or cannot say as well in Chinese, and there are things you can say in Hinduism that you just cannot say or cannot say as well in Catholicism.

The more spoken languages I know, the richer and more nuanced is my understanding of the world. The more religious languages I know, the richer and more nuanced is my understanding of life.
This has nothing to do with creating some religious version of Esperanto. I love my mother tongues—both English and Judaism—and have no desire to abandon either. But I am enriched beyond description by learning Sanskrit, Chinese, Arabic, and Greek; Hinduism, Taoism, Islam, and Christianity. No one should be asked to abandon her mother tongue, and everyone should be encouraged to study the other languages of human religiosity. Deep Interfaith encounter is one way to learn another’s language, and when we do we cannot help but be transformed by that knowledge.

This is the kind of Interfaith dialogue I long for. This is the kind of Interfaith dialogue Scarritt-Bennett Center and Wisdom House promote in our monthly Common Table breakfasts, our Dialogues on Faith groups, our Essential Conversations lunches, and other programs. We are not looking to change the languages of faith, but to change those who speak them. We are not looking to create a new religion, but to help foster a new religious sensitivity. We are not interested in blending religions or laying claim to a false and facile religious unity, but to helping one another find in our differences insights of spiritual genius that can transform our lives.

Hinduism’s Rig Veda, perhaps the world’s oldest sacred text, teaches: “Truth is one; different people call it by different names.” The names matter. The Tao isn’t Allah, and Christ isn’t Krishna. Rather they, and all the names we humans have created for that which is ultimately Unnamable, speak to part of the Truth. The more names we know, the more parts we understand, and the closer to Truth we come. But we can never reduce Truth to words. This is why in addition to dialogue we must engage with one another in silent meditation as well.

As the Tao te Ching tells us, “The Tao that can be named is not the Eternal Tao.” Ultimately all words fall short; and all voices must fall silent. It is good that we share our liturgies; it is better that we share the greater silence. And this too is the promise of Interfaith.
When we are free to share our languages without having to defend them, we will at last come to the end of talk, and fall silent together in a humbling stillness that frees us from words, and awakens us to that Ultimate Truth that no words can frame.

This week is World Interfaith Harmony Week. The harmony we seek is not the cheap harmony of serial monologue, or the faux harmony of people ignoring differences, or the fragile harmony of people pretending to believe what they do not believe simply to get along.

Real harmony will take more than a week to create. It will not happen among those who fear to hear, let alone speak, another’s religious language. It will not happen among those whose faith needs defending, but only among those whose faith leads them to the ultimate humbling, and the courage to step into “the between.”

To enter “the between,” first in words and then in silence, is the challenge and promise of Interfaith, the goal of World Interfaith Harmony Week, and the mission of Scarritt–Bennett’s Wisdom House. This is the path on which we embark this morning. Let us walk it to the end.