[P2P-F] Fwd: Michel, I need your help and I need it now.

Mon Oct 20 23:56:51 CEST 2014

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rabbi Michael Lerner <rabbilerner.tikkun at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Oct 21, 2014 at 4:53 AM
Subject: Michel, I need your help and I need it now.
To: Michelsub2004 at gmail.com

     Rabbi Michael Lerner

951 Cragmont Ave. Berkeley, CA 94708
      *I need your help and I need it now.* Join or Donate Now!
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=Qo%2BJqAm5hePdzFKWZA6%2BmH63qBScFkYF>

Dear Michel,

I understand if you feel deeply troubled by what has been happening in the
United States and around the world this past year. I know I do. But I also
have a lot to be grateful for in my personal life—my son finished writing
his first book (on a phenomenology of hope with a special focus on Martin
Buber) and my grandchildren are flourishing into wonderful pre-adolescents.
And I’m very proud to tell you that four weeks ago Tikkun magazine received
the “Magazine of the Year Award” from the Religion Newswriters Association,
reminding the public at large of the high quality of our magazine. And I’m
proud that we were among the cosponsors of the Great Climate March in New
York City. A Tikkun and Network of Spiritual Progressives contingent
marched in it, and I loved being there with 400,000 demonstrators-- so many
caring and joyous people!

Yet despite these achievements, the political developments in the United
States, Israel, Palestine, Iraq, and Syria have been so upsetting that they
have interfered with my sleep and the writing I had planned for the year. I
have been so upset by the outrageous behavior of ISIS and the simplistic
response of the West (“let’s bomb them and then see what happens”), which
threatens to deepen the mess we in the United States helped to create with
our last invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

This after a summer in which Israelis, understandably fearful from the
daily bombing attempts that sent them (often several times a day) into air
raid shelters to avoid the missiles beings launched by Hamas, allowed
themselves to forget the (if they ever really understood) the horrible
conditions that the Occupation has imposed on Palestinians and the hunger
and poverty that their seven year blockade of Gaza has imposed on Gazans
(with the resulting attitude of "if we are going to perish, lets do it by
fighting back" that was propagated by the  leadership of Hamas). While most
Americans rallied around Israel, forgetting that Israel had broken off
peace negotiations with the non-violence-enforcing Palestinian Authority in
the West Bank, and the American Jewish community told itself Israel "had no
alternative," we at Tikkun were speaking out to remind people that there
really is an alternative: to end the Occupation of the West Bank, and with
generous and caring terms (that show real respect for the humanity of the
Palestinians) to make peace with the Palestinian people rather than beat
them into submission. (I've specified those terms in the Winter 2014 issue
of Tikkun and more fully in my book *Embracing Israel/Palestine*).

And as if this wasn't bad enough, the Right wing in the US may be on the
verge of capturing both houses of Congress, a response in part to the
racism that has been systematically directed at President Obama, in part to
Obama's failure to fight for a coherent alternative to the militarism,
hatred of immigrants (he deported more "illegals" than any previous
president), and ethos of selfishness and materialism that are endemic in
the competitive marketplace and that are championed by a
corporate-dominated culture and a Supreme Court that has struck down every
legislative attempt to restrain the ability of the rich to shape elections
and defacto buy themselves the best Congress that their wealth can buy.

Reading the New York Times these days can leave one feeling heartbroken and
powerless. Yet, times like these call us to open our hearts in empathy to
all beings and take a stand for love, kindness, and generosity ). Times
like these call us to push beyond our sense of despair to engage in work
that promotes a new worldview—one that inspires us to move beyond our
limited belief of what is realistic to imagine and work toward what is
desirable. And they call for an alternative that we at Tikkun and our
Tikkun Community, also known as the interfaith and secular humanist and
atheist-welcoming Network of Spiritual Progressives has been developing.
But to keep that alternative alive, we need your support!

We at Tikkun have some very important ideas about how to change the
dominance of the militarists, the cheerleaders for the 1%, and the voices
of cynicism and despair, but I worry that you, Michel, and others may have
gotten so exhausted by the suffering in the world that you might no longer
recognize how important it is to keep Tikkun’s voice strong by making a
generous donation now, even if you already donated this year or rejoined
our Network of Spiritual Progressives. I want to highlight some of our
great work to help you recognize how important our work is and to inspire
you to support us yet again with a tax-deductible donation.

1. We have been leading workshops on “Grieving and Mourning What’s
Happening in Israel and Palestine and Learning to Communicate Across
Differences” in response to requests from folks throughout the country.
This is what some have said about these trainings: “It was a powerful, life
changing workshop yesterday” or from another:  “I actually feel a sense of
spaciousness and hope that I can have these conversations in a more
productive way.” We are now working with students on university campuses
who have been trying to challenge the policy of Hillel Foundations which
will not allow Jewish speakers who are critical of Israeli policies, and we
are finding that despite the near-universal control of the Jewish media by
the pro-Netanyahu forces, there are growing numbers of younger Jews who
understand that Israel's policies are actually fostering anti-Semitism
rather than protecting Jews from the irrational hatreds that led to
previous pogroms and genocide against us. Tikkun is speaking to that
generation (but they are mostly not yet in a position to financially help
Tikkun survive).

2. We have been leading “Trainings for Transformative Activists” in which
participants learn how to unify fractured, local, social change groups
behind a shared vision of a caring society and the Tikkun/NSP idea of* "A
New Bottom Line"  (namely: our social, economic, and political institutions
would be judged efficient, rational, and productive to the extent that they
maximize love, caring, kindness, generosity, and environmentally
sustainable and ethical behavior, helping us to treat other human beings as
ends in themselves rather than solely as means to our own ends). Such a
society would help us respond to nature with awe, wonder, and radical
amazement, enabling us to make the difficult changes necessary to sustain
our planet*. People have never heard progressives talk this way, and when
they hear it, they love it. *Articulating what we are for, not just what we
are against, would greatly help progressives*. The next such training will
take place in Brooklyn, N.Y. on Thursday and Friday, Nov.13 and 14th. Cat
Zavis, the executive director of the NSP-Network of Spiritual Progressives
 will be sending you an email about that in the next seven days.

3. We have organized conference calls for Tikkun subscribers and NSP
members to talk with leading thinkers and activists (most recently with Uri
Avnery, an Israeli peace activist and former member of the Knesset, and
Sami Awad, a Palestinian peace activist and director of the Holy Land
Trust). We will be doing similar calls every month starting later this fall.

4. Cat Zavis has been strategizing with chapter leaders to revitalize our
international network, energize members, and provide the support necessary
to sustain their work. Would you be willing to help create a local chapter
of NSP? Cat can help: email her at Cat at spiritualprogressives.org.  And she
is creating task forces in which professionals use the idea of The New
Bottom Line to re-envision how their professions would function in a caring
society—and then work to transform their workplaces accordingly! Are you a
professional who might be interested in engaging fellow professionals in
this creative work of envisioning what your profession might look like if
people were being rewarded for their capacity to generate more caring,
environmentally sensitive, ethical, and generosity-oriented consciousness
in the world? Or do you have friends or contacts who might be interested in
that kind of activity. If so, contact Cat at spiritualprogressives.org.

 5. Tikkun and the Tikkun Daily blog have expanded their writer base,
drawing in brilliant new younger writers and increasing interfaith
diversity. But this, like our other activities, can only be sustained with
your financial help.

6. We’ve drawn national attention and recognition for the amazing quality
of the print edition of Tikkun. We’ve reported on the exciting new
frameworks and projects that could lead us toward opening our borders,
ending deportation, ending mass incarceration, ending predatory cycles of
debt, and rethinking the relation between identity politics and class
struggle. And we’ve opened readers’ eyes to some radical ideas and
interfaith discussions about God (not the “big man in heaven”). Our
publisher (Duke University Press) doesn’t allow us to share the full
versions of these articles freely online, so to get them you have to sign
up for a print or online subscription (which is free with membership in the
NSP).

7. We’ve been in the forefront of showing what a real solution to the
Israel/Palestine struggle could look like. I was honored to have my article
on how I am mourning for an Israel that seems to be murdering Judaism and
Jewish values picked up by Salon.com and by CNN, which gave me a solid
interview seen by millions of people around the world. Our prophetic and
provocative High Holiday supplement (“For Our Sins”) was reprinted on “The
Daily Beast” and read by millions of young people around the world. Many
Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims have responded warmly,
saying the love-oriented Judaism I’ve advocated has given them new hope. We
understand that to be pro-Israel one must be pro-Palestine and to be
pro-Palestine one must also be pro-Israel because there will be no
sustainable solution that doesn’t meet the needs for security, justice, and
respect of both peoples. And while Tikkun emerged from the Jewish world, if
you look at the magazine you'll see that we are also deeply interfaith (and
secular humanist welcoming), and that we present some of the most cutting
edge ideas in American politics (for example our forthcoming issues calling
for the abolition of debt, just as we've called for a phasing out of
national borders and a comprehensive global project to save the
environment). The narrow pragmatism of the Democrats has not led to
inspiring the growth of a liberal and progressive consciousness in
America--what is needed is precisely the visionary and prophetic voices
that we promote in Tikkun and in the NSP!!

8. And of course, we continue to promote and champion our Domestic and
Global Marshall Plan
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=%2FOwXrlJhDLy99oEHxBS4M363qBScFkYF>
and
our Environmental and Social Responsibility Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=Nt31bF3r53WEQx60C1X8eX63qBScFkYF>.
Our petition for the amendment received thousands of signatures
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=s7CaZsTOiyVTM%2FtGShJ%2B1n63qBScFkYF>
on MoveOn.org and was discussed widely at the Great Climate March.

Tikkun is one of the very few voices in the progressive world that provide
an alternative vision to that of the Right. The big picture is this: the
message of our economy, which rewards selfishness and materialism, is
reinforced by media that increasingly validate “looking out for number one”
and the need for endless economic growth.

 This message is further amplified by our culture, which sees “success” as
measured primarily in terms of how much money or power one accumulates.
What gets rewarded in the economy--a "look out for number one" and "don't
trust others because all they care about is themselves" consciousness,
which is then dramatically reinforced by the media with its daily drumming
into our heads that people are all about getting power and money for
themselves--inevitably seeps into the consciousness of people in their
private lives and in their relationships. All of this generates a
population that is increasingly cynical, resigned to living in a world
without idealism or hope, and increasingly unable to sustain long-term
relationships. This creates loneliness in many people’s lives.

People are desperate for a sense of meaning and purpose that transcends the
selfishness and materialism of the competitive marketplace, and in their
attempts to find a community that feels nurturing, many turn to
fundamentalist religion or secular nationalist extremism. And indeed they
momentarily find in these communities some real caring people who treat
them with the respect that they never get in the rest of their lives. But
there is an unfortunate cost to all this: they then learn to accept the
notion that some “other” is the cause of their despair, and that “other” is
then demeaned or even murdered. If you understand this, you understand that
a long term strategy to undermine the extremists can't rely on bombing them
into sanity, but must instead address the underlying and legitimate needs
for respect, caring, love, and economic and political security that then
drive them into communities that offer some of this but at the expense of
adopting hateful attitudes toward those outside these communities.

Our vision of a new bottom line with a solid commitment to non-violence,
empathy and genuine caring for all (not just a narrow community of the
"saved" or "elect" or nationalist fanatics who exist in almost every nation
state in the world) is a step toward providing an alternative framework of
meaning and purpose in life, and a way to address the needs that have led
so many people into irrational and even hateful political, religious or
social movements. .

There are thousands of wonderful social change groups, many of which do
valuable work on a single issue or with a local focus, and we do our best
to highlight these groups and celebrate their accomplishments. But the
deeper truth is that unless these groups build more vibrant and lasting
coalitions strengthened by a shared worldview, and unless they succeed in
creating a sense of loving, caring communities, people will continue to
turn to fundamentalist groups, and more sweeping change will remain out of
reach. Right-wing Americans, massively aided by the media they mostly
control, have focused on shaping the dominant discourse. Meanwhile many
liberal groups have adopted some of the key assumptions of the Right,
imagining that if they steer clear of class struggle and progressive
worldviews and instead focus narrowly on specific reforms they will win
greater support. As a result, U.S. policies have moved markedly to the
right over the past thirty years.

We need a unifying alternative vision—not a series of complaints about what
is wrong, but a positive view of the world we really want. And that is
precisely what makes Tikkun and the NSP so unique--because In both Tikkun
and our Network of Spiritual Progressives, we address the underlying
psycho-spiritual crisis in people’s lives and provide an alternative vision
of the world most people actually want but don't dare articulate for fear
that they will be dismissed as "unrealistic" or "utopian." Yet it is
precisely that kind of a vision that is the only hope for regenerating a
social movement capable of providing a viable and powerful alternative to
the Right, to the fundamentalists (both in the US and around the world),
and ot the passivity-generating cynical columnists and talking heads who
deaden political life with their supposedly intellectual distancing from
the suffering of humanity and the increasing destruction of the life
support system of our planet. . Many liberals and progressives are already
motivated by a concern about this underlying crisis, but they rarely name
it, instead framing their goals through a narrow language of political
“rights” and economic “entitlements,” while ceding the underlying values
language to the Right. Our framework provides the language and vision that
could give liberal and progressive forces a new energy.

Here’s the challenge: given that our work focuses on society-transforming
consciousness change and long-term solutions rather than short-term fixes,
we have more difficulty securing donations and funding than more narrowly
targeted social change organizations do. *To sustain our work we need
people who already love and appreciate our work—including you Michel!—to
step up and contribute.** So, will you please help us by making a
tax-deductible contribution (even if you already are a member of the
Network of Spiritual Progressives or have already donated to Tikkun this
year)?* You can do so online by clicking here
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=CKOzSpwDncL0ykiLbyksMH63qBScFkYF>,
by sending your check to Tikkun at 2342 Shattuck Ave., #1200, Berkeley, CA
94704, or by calling 510-644-1200 between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Pacific Time
during the work week. Honestly, we have no one else to turn to for this
support, so we beg you to stretch beyond what you would normally find
comfortable donating. Could you afford to donate $30 a month? or $20 a
month? or $10 a month?--we can arrange that to be deducted from your credit
card if you go to our web page or if you call our office 510 644 1200
between 9 am and 5 p.m. Pacific Daytlight Time (soon to be Pacific Standard
Time when the clock changes in early November).

<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=iRikx9Lrf0msMGHJW%2FHtwn63qBScFkYF>*CLICK
HERE TO SUPPORT TIKKUN
<http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=MqSAJgPmKyTGxOkrXFlE%2B363qBScFkYF>*

Whether or not you donate, let me take this moment to send my blessings to
you for a coming year of physical, psychological, and spiritual health—a
year in which you are nourished with love and a sense of fulfillment and
meaning to your life, and a year in which we all see major advances toward
a world of love, generosity, social and economic justice, environmental
sanity, and peace.

Rabbi Michael Lerner           rabbilerner.tikkun at gmail.com

(Yes, I'm really here, I look at every person who donates to Tikkun or the
NSP or subscribes to the magazine, and really honestly and deeply
appreciate it--because I can only keep going when I know there are people
like you willing to stretch to donate something to keep this venture
alive-- and though you are not the only one receiving this, you are the one
I have to rely on, because as Rabbi Hillel said, "If I am not for myself,
who will be for me, but if I am only for myself, what am I, and IF NOT NOW,
WHEN?"--so please help us out, and if you really can't, chances are you
know someone who can, or you or someone you know can put us in their will
for a bequest when they die, or you know people who would love Tikkun if
you'd buy them a gift subscription for the Winter holidays of Christmas,
Chanukah, Kwanzaa, or just plain secular winter holiday--and no, they don't
have to be Jewish to find a huge number of articles that will speak to
them--just read our home page at www.tikkun.org to remind yourself of how
broad our vision is, and how much it would appeal to many people you know).

P.S. Please don't write to me to tell me why you can't afford to give
anything. I'll assume that you have the best of intentions, even if you
don't donate. But I'm sure there is someone you know who could afford to
donate--so why don't you reach out to them and convince them to donate! And
by the way, I hate to have to be asking you, but on the other hand, I also
accept the Jewish tradition's position on this question: that giving you
the opportunity to make a serious contribution to healing and transforming
our world by supporting the only internationally distributed magazine that
has that healing and transformation as its explicit goal (the very word
'tikkun' means healing and transformation) is a good deed, so I'm not
supposed to be embarrassed at asking you for this help, even though I am a
bit embarrassed.

*If you are receiving this email and have already responded to my letter to
you in the mail, I apologize for the duplicate message and thank you! *

  ------------------------------
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email: info at spiritualprogressives.org
*Click here to unsubscribe*
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------------------------------
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