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Teens and Tikkun Olam 
Appeared in Moment Magazine, Dec. 1999
Educating the Children of Prophets
Appeared in Jewish Education News, 2000.
Moral Development and Tikkun Olam
Appeared in Jewish Education News, 1999.
Renewing Jewish Life through Jewish Civics
Appeared in Journal of Jewish Communal Service, June, 2000
Exodus and Sinai: New Thoughts on Jewish Identity
Appeared in Sh'ma, October 2005
Hold the Eulogy, Jewish Renaissance on the Rise
Appeared in Conservative Judaism, Spring 2004
Judaism and Justice
Appeared in The Reconstructionist, Fall 2003
The Privilege Gap
Appeared in Tikkun, Vol. 19, No. 5
We are Family: Reflections on Israel in Crisis
Yom Kippur Sermon, 2002
Ancient Wisdom for the Jewish Future
Appeared in Washington Jewish Week, June 6, 2002
Can We Talk?
Appeared in Moment magazine, June, 2002
Between Conscience and Solidarity
Appeared in condensed form in the Forward, June 6, 2002
Synagogues that Work
This article appeared in Jewish Education News, Winter, 2002
Exploring Religion, Social Justice and the Common Good
Appeared in The Reconstructionist, Vol. 65, No. 1, Fall, 2000
The Rabbi As Spiritual Leader
Appeared in
The Reconstructionist, Fall 1999
Synagogues for a New Era
Appeared in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, October, 2000
E Pluribus Unum Project: Inagural Keynote Address 1997
From Healing to Justice
This article appeared in The Reconstructionist, Spring, 1995
Covenant Award Acceptance Speech
Philadelphia, PA,
November 21, 2002
The Road to Peace is Filled With Stones
Appeared in Washington Jewish Week, May 17, 2001
Sidney Schwarz: Politics and Religion
By Mitchell Bard, Appeared in Lifestyles Magazine, Spring 2000
Covenant Award Acceptance Speech
Philadelphia, PA
November 21, 2002
I need to start with something of a heresy for a Reconstructionist rabbi. With every passing year, I am increasingly aware of the hand of God in my life. The latest evidence was this morning, as I attended a morning experience with Storahtelling, a new dramatic performance group that brings the Torah to life through interactive presentation. Not yet being Friday, I had not even focused on the week¹s Torah portion when the leader of Storahtelling invited for an aliyah to the Torah all those who had collected battle scars, inner or outer, in their attempts to bring about something they desperately wanted to achieve on their life journey. I immediately identified. In coming to the Torah, we would be linked to our ancestor, Jacob, who, in the reading, wrestled with a divine being, became Israel (one who wrestled with God), and was left with a lifelong limp as a result.
So here I am standing at the Torah, which was being read by, of all people, an alumnus of our Panim el Panim program who is currently studying to be a Jewish educator. She is reading the weekly portion of Vayishlach on the day that would later feature my receipt of the coveted Covenant Award for my contributions to the field of Jewish education, primarily through the vehicle of the organization I founded, PANIM. And the first verse reads: ³Jacob called that place Peniel, for it was in that place that he encountered God, panim el panim (face to face), and survived²!
My life is indeed blessed.
* * *
We read in the Talmud, tractate Ketubot, priat baal chov mitzvah, ³the acknowledgment and settling of debt is a mitzvah, a religious obligation.²
Standing here today, I am keenly aware of how large my ledger of debt is. Noone who has enjoyed the success that has come my way does so without help. So, allow me to chalk up a mitzvah this afternoon (I can use all that I can get) by acknowledging some debts, to many people who fill this room:
-to my parents, who gave me both a strong Jewish education and identity and then let me find my own path;
-to the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and Reconstructionist movement which gave a refugee from an Orthodox yeshiva a new perspective on how Judaism could be made relevant to the American Jewish community;
-to members of both congregations I had the privilege to serve, Beth Israel of Media, PA and Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation of Bethesda, MD. We proved that Judaism could be joyful, soulful and powerful, all at the same time.
-to members of my staff, past and present, at PANIM who tolerate my maniacal passion to try to undertake way too many projects in way too little time, and then help me do it;
-to members of my PANIM board who believed in me and who have been my partners in creating a significant new organization in American Jewish life, starting from nothing;
-to Jon Woocher and the JESNA staff who gave so much support to our programs early on, providing important endorsement and credibility;
-to Shulamith Elster, a treasure to the field of Jewish education and a mentor I am lucky to have down the hall from my office;
-to the Covenant Foundation, which first invested in PANIM in 1996 with a grant to launch the Jewish Civics Initiative, now the largest Jewish community service program in the country, and which now honors my work and achievements. Truth be told, I see my work as sacred, as a calling. Every day I feel privileged to be engaged in the work of Jewish education, tikkun olam and strengthening the fabric of the Jewish people and the Jewish community. The recognition bestowed on me by the Covenant Foundation today, is just a bonus.
-last, but certainly not least, to my wife, Sandy and my children, Danny, Joel and Jennifer. The kind of work that so many of us in this room do, cannot be sustained without love. My wife and family are a never ending source of support and love without which none of my work would make sense, nor be possible.
I want to take advantage of this distinguished and accomplished audience for a few minutes to share three lessons that I have learned in the course of my work in the community. I share it because I believe and hope that it might be instructive for how we, as a community of faith and of fate, might conduct ourselves in the future. The three lessons are:
1. It shouldn¹t be so hard
2. It shouldn¹t be so easy
3. It isn¹t just about Jewish education
- It shouldn't be so hard
When I set out to launch, what has become, PANIM in the late 1980¹s, I had a fair amount of professional experience, a good reputation and a solid business plan. Yet years went by until I could find philanthropists and foundations to invest in me and in the idea. There is truth to the saying that success is a product of 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration, but someone should re-do the math because it also takes 20% worth of good luck as well. I shudder to think how many good ideas our community has lost out on because we have not been open to entrepreneurial creativity. Thank goodness for new projects like JESNA¹s Bikkurim program and the Joshua Venture, which now serve as incubators for such creativity. We need to do more to support social entrepreneurship in the Jewish community. The Jewish community¹s greatest asset is that there are a lot of smart Jews out there. We need to find better ways to channel their smarts to benefit our community.
- It shouldn't be so easy
Jewish education today can be characterized as small islands of success in a sea of failure. The reality is that it doesn¹t take all that much to connect with Jewish teens. We need to spend more time trying to enter their world and less time trying to shoehorn them into ours. I once read a story about a magic coat. It would fit any person of any size perfectly once they put it on. Jewish tradition is like that magic coat. It is a treasure of wisdom and insight if only we try to put it on. We live in a world in which people spend a lifetime and small fortunes to find wisdom and insight. If educators took a bit more time to listen to their charges, they would be astounded by how many young people would be willing to try on the magic coat of the Jewish tradition. ... And the coat would be worn for generations to come.
- It isn't just about Jewish education
We need to rethink what we mean by ³Jewish education². Let us remember that Jewish education is a means, not an end in itself. Two percent of the Jewish people care about Jewish education. Ninety-plus percent of the Jewish people care about making some contribution to making the world a better place. Our job as Jewish educators is to provide Jews with the language to understand what is Jewish about caring for the stanger ( ahavat ger ); helping the most vulnerable members of our society ( hakem takim imo ); speaking truth to power ( hocheach tocheach ); wiping out intolerance, bigotry and prejudice because we understand that within every person is a spark of God ( tzelem elohim ). These values reveal the purpose of our tradition. When Jews start to see that the purpose of Jewish education is to make these values manifest in the world, we won¹t have to go running in search of a vanishing Jewish population. Jews will, instead, be running after us for we hold the key to making their lives filled with meaning and purpose.
Friends, the purpose of Jewish education is not to make more Jews, more Jewish. It is, in the words of the mishna, to create a world of din, emet and shalom , a world of justice, truth and peace. Ironically, when we focus on that as the goal, we will have more success at making more Jews more Jewish than we ever dreamed possible.
We are Family: Reflections on Israel in Crisis
Yom Kippur Sermon, 2002
No issue commanded the attention of Jews and the Jewish community this past year as much as the crisis in Israel. The campaign of suicide bombings have exacted a horrendous physical and psychological toll on Israelis. Just about two years ago it seemed as if Ehud Barak and Yassar Arafat¹s Palestinian Authority were on the verge of a breakthrough peace agreement. What we have witnessed instead is a progressive unraveling of a peace process that took years to develop and a return to the cycle of violence that leaves everyone bereft of simple solutions.
Many are weighing in with opinions about how to resolve the Israeli-Arab conflict which has now gone on for more than 100 years. My concern here is a bit different. In the face of this conflict many Jews are questioning the very basis for their relationship to a state that is supposed to be central to Jewish identity and consciousness. Can we continue to talk about Israel as part of the larger Jewish family of which we are part? And if so, how?
What makes a family?
I ask myself the question: ³How large is the universe of Jews who wake up each morning and hasten to open the paper to see if the headlines bring news of another terrorist attack in Israel?
When hearing the news of another suicide bombing in Israel with fatalities and casualties, how many Jews get that queasy feeling in their stomachs that is our bodies way of telling us this is information that is not just being processed rationally in our brains but has somehow entered our kishkas, the antennae of our souls?
How many Jews see a Newsweek cover story entitled ³Will Israel Survive?² and read it as ³Will your People Survive?²
The Waning of Jewish Group Consciousness
There is much evidence that, in America, what has accompanied the general acceptance of Jews in society and our socio-economic success is a weakening of our feelings of ethnic connection to Jews around the world and to Israel. This, perhaps, explains an interesting change that has taken place in the American Jewish community. In 1975 the UN passed a resolution that equated Zionism with racism. The Jewish community responded with a campaign which included widespread distribution of buttons which said ³I am a Zionist². At least in the circles I ran in in those days, Jews wore those buttons proudly.
Today, the Jewish community attempts to respond to one of the most widespread and sustained campaigns of anti-semitism we have seen in our lifetime but it does not include an affirmative expression on the part of Jews that ³we are Zionists².
A good friend of mine who is a generous supporter of numerous Jewish causes and in fact, went to Israel last spring on a solidarity mission, said in my presence that while he will do whatever it takes to defend Israel, he is not a Zionist. My attempts to make the case that much of his behavior would suggest otherwise, were politely but vehemently resisted. Pro-Israel yes, Zionist, no.
I fear that this is a view that is widespread. Judaism has become an increasingly personal, inner, spiritual pursuit for American Jews. It is bad enough that only about a third of American Jews identify in any affirmative way with their Jewish identity. What is even more distressing is that many of that one-third would resist extending their sense of Jewish identity to some sense of civic commitment to the Jewish people. This manifests itself in alienation from umbrella Jewish federations that are the umbrella planning, fundrasing and allocation arm of the Jewish community; lack of concern with endangered Jews in places like Argentina, Europe and the former Soviet Union; and an aversion to thinking about what it means to be a Zionist.
Israel--June, 2002
These were among the concerns that motivated me to go to Israel this past June. I was a delegate to the 34th World Zionist Congress which first met in Basel, Switzerland in 1897. It was at this international gathering of Jews, on the eve of the 20th century, that Theodore Herzl, who was the moving force behind the Congress, earned his status as the father of modern Zionism and something of a prophet for he declared in that year, 1897, that in 50 years, there would be an independent Jewish homeland for the Jewish people. He got it exactly right.
There is much to tell, even after only a week in the country. Life seems telescoped in Israel. There is an intensity that is both intoxicating and exhausting. Every event seems to take on historical, if not theological importance.
The connection of Jews to Israel could hardly be better conveyed than it was in a letter written by Marla Bennet, the American studying in Israel to be a Jewish educator, killed in June, 2002 by a terrorist bomb at Hebrew University. The letter was written shortly before she became a victim to the campaign of terror which has targeted Israeli civilians for the past two years.
She wrote: ³I love living here. The air is charged with our debates and discussions. We are trying to absorb all of the lessons that life here offers. Life here is magical. But life here is also difficult. My time here is dramatically affected by both the security situation and by the events happening around me. I feel energized by the opportunity to support Israel during a difficult period. I have the honor to be an American choosing to remain in Israel and assist, however minimally, in Israel¹s triumph.²
Marla Bennet¹s words ring in my ears because virtually every Israeli I met--cab drivers, teachers, soldiers, public officials, housewives--asked the same question: where are all the American Jews during our time of trial?
However troubling and psychologically traumatic the two years of terrorism have been, Israelis say that the country has always lived in a sea of hostility, amid both actual and threatened attacks. They can deal with it. What is far more debilitating is the sense that the same Jews who raised money on the slogan: ³we are one², are now nowhere to be found in Israel. ³We are One, We are One, We are One²-This was the mantra of my Jewish youth. It was supposed to mean that the Jewish people and Israel were one family. It was supposed to mean that we would be there for each other. It was supposed to mean, ³united we stand; divided we fall². We, diaspora Jews, have hardly lived up to our end of the bargain. The evaporation of Jewish tourism during the past two years has both devastated the Israeli economy and undermined Israeli morale. Israelis have never before felt so alone.
This is the backdrop to two incidents that drove home to me yet again, on my recent visit, how we--Jews and Israel--are part of the same family.
We are family
As part of my participation in the World Zionist Congress, I chose to sit on a committee on ³Israel as a Jewish and Democratic State². A day earlier there had been a sucide bombing on a street not a mile from the convention center in Jerusalem. Ariel Sharon changed his plans to speak to us and instead, visited the site even as the bus was still in flames. Now, in the middle of our deliberations, word came to us of another suicide bombing in French Hill, a prosperous neighborhood near Hebrew University. The Magen David Adom, the Israeli Red Cross, set up a blood drive in the convention center and delegates took turns giving blood. Meanwhile, the chairman of our committee, a Jew from Germany who was not religious, turned to some of the kipah wearing delegates from the religious parties to lead the room in the saying of Psalms, a traditional Jewish practice to pray for the souls of those whose lives had just been extinguished and their loved ones, who would now mourn their loss. He asked all of us, Jews from all over the world, representing the full spectrum of political ideologies, to stand in respect.
Next to me sat a member of the Meretz party, an ideologically committed secularist from France. He stood with the rest of the room but because his english and hebrew were so poor, it took him about a 10 seconds to realize that he had been drawn into a moment that he deemed to be religious, and against his convictions. He started screaming at the top of his lungs: ³this is an outrage, I do not agree with this religious action; I protest².
The room was stunned. We were taken by the appropriateness of what the chairman had proposed we do as a symbolic act of solidarity and respect. Then the delegates started screaming back at the French Jew. Above the din, was our chairman, who controlled the mikes and who chastised the Frenchman: ³How dare you desecrate this moment. I was in Auschwitz. I saw my entire family, my entire community perish, and now Jews are being killed again and you have the chutzpah to bicker at this time!²
The Frenchman responded: ³ I too was at Auschwitz. It is this damned religion that got us killed. Don¹t you go trying to impose it on me². The room fell quiet. As angry as the entire room was a moment before, we were now looking into the eyes of a survivor. It confers a certain level of deference. The French Jews¹ anti-religious stance was forged by the fires of the crematoria. It was not easily dismissed. The quiet in the room was deafening. We wept silently.
We wept at our common historical fate; we wept because the Holocaust¹s looming shadow, which in Israel, never seems very far away, was suddenly in the room with us; we wept over the intensity of the anger that was expressed just a moment earlier, a family squabble that erupted because of the tension we all were under; we wept out of fear for ourselves and the future of Israel and the Jewish people.
How painful it is when families, whose members desperately need each other, fight.
The Ingathering of Exiles
The second incident took place when, during the week I was in Israel, I had the chance to go to Ben Gurion Airport to welcome arriving immigrants. Zionist ideology talks about the ³ingathering of the exiles², by which it means, that one of the functions of a Jewish state is to be a haven for Jews anywhere in the world, offering the opportunity to become a citizen of the Jewish state by simple declaration and moving one¹s life to Israel. I knew of others who had witnessed the arrival of new immigrants, but nothing prepared me for the emotional power of the experience. Here in a week that saw three terrorist attacks on Israelis, in a country barren of any signs of tourism, some 400 Jews were moving their entire families and lives to Israel. One plane was from the Ukraine, one from Russia and one from Argentina. Off the plane came young and old, men and women. Some looked religious; most did not. One Russian Jew, looked to be in his 90¹s, was being assisted by his grown son and followed by his grandchildren. He had no teeth, walked with a cane, and was wearing his WWI uniform with a chestful of medals. The Argentinians were mostly young families which had witnessed the bottom drop out of a once thriving economy. Most had gone from comfortable middle class lives to poverty, almost overnight.
We who were delegates there to greet the new olim , formed a human corridor. Those who came off the plane seemed stunned to be greeted by several hundred well dressed western Jews, cabinet ministers of the state of Israel and a band. As they trudged slowly through the human wall we had created, they began to respond to our gifts of flowers, Israeli flags and stuffed animals for the children. I was not the only only one shedding the kind of tears that one cries when witnessing a miracle.
Soon I along with other delegates started kissing each and every oleh chadash, every new immigrant. These were Jews who were about to start a new life; with almost nothing. They were coming to a place they had never been before, but they were coming home. And we were their welcoming family. The band struck up some music and despite the barriers of language and geography, we mixed together and danced. Like family.
This went on for over an hour, in the mid-day heat. The new immigrants had been on planes for over 12 hours. We were all physically and emotionally drained. But there was one last rite of passage. An official greeting from member of Knesset and Minister of Absorption, Yuli Edelstein. Yuli was one of the heroes of the Soviet Jewry movement. Raised a secular Russian, he discovered his Jewish identity as a young man and taught himself impeccable Hebrew. At great risk, he organized cells of Hebrew clubs throughout Russia, under the nose of the Russian KGB in the late 70¹s and early 80¹s. He was arrested and jailed in 1984, serving three years as a prisoner of conscience before being released and making aliyah in 1987. I had the privilege to meet Yuli in Russia before his imprisonment. He is one of my personal spiritual heroes. I¹ve met him several other times on my trips to Israel.
Yuli¹s message to the new olim boiled down to this: ³Don¹t let anyone tell you that absorption will be easy. It won¹t be. But I am here to tell you that you are home; you are among family. We will take care of you².
The Lesson
These are two powerful examples of what it means to see the extended Jewish people as part of one family. Being part of a family has many rewards; but it also carries obligations. The reward is receiving the embrace of a set of people who will always be there for you. But the obligation is reciprocal. You must be there for other members of your family when they are in need.
We cannot rejoice in the privilige of being part of the Jewish people and its legacy to the world unless we act in support of members of the Jewish people whom we can help. When we acquire that understanding, that consciousness, the implications are clear. The Jewish tradition is filled with the lesson:
Pirke Avot, The Ethics of our Ancestors says: ³You shall not separate yourself from your community². Talmud Sanhedrin teaches:³all of Israel is responsible, one for the other². In the tractateTaanit we receive one of the best lessons about the reciprocal obligations of being a member of a community of history and fate: ³At a time when Israel is in distress, one cannot go about eating and drinking in his or her own home, acting as if nothing is wrong².
I want to suggest that there is noone in this room this morning who could not legitimately add one extra al chet line in this year¹s Yom Kippur liturgy that would read: ³for the sin we have committed for going about our daily business, while Israel and the Jewish people is in crisis:²
Our tradition teaches that acknowledgement of a misdeed or a sin is only half the battle. We must then set about rectifying the wrong with positive actions. Let me here then suggest three things that we can, no, that we must consider doing, to act in a way commensurate with our obligations of being part of an historic and global Jewish community.
1. Be advocates for Israel by monitoring the media, responding where you think imbalance or inaccuracies exist, and by making contact with members of Congress with your views on middle east issues. Your involvement as informed American citizens on this front is crucial to help the state of Israel. Check out honesreporting.com
2. Seek to buy Israeli products. It is a tangible way to help the Israeli economy and there are websites that can help you identify a wide array of Israeli goods which local retailers could be encouraged to stock. Check out shopinIsrael.com
3. Seek to visit Israel in the next year. You may be interested in joining one of two specific missions to Israel being planned by our local Jewish federation. Nov. federation mission (11/3-7)and special Adat Shalom mission with me (Jan. 30-February 5).
Conclusion
A closing story: It took place on my cab ride from my hotel to the airport to return home from Israel. I got in the cab in Jerusalem at about 4:30am to make my 8am flight. My driver was in his 20¹s, clean shaven and appearing Jewish, but with a dark complexion, I couldn¹t be totally sure. In Israel, especially today, one is always making judgements about peoples¹s tribal connections: religious or secular? Ashkenazi or Sephardic? Jew or Arab? native born or emigre? hawk or dove? We are a fractious, divided people. I sized up my driver as a secular, native born Israeli, but I wasn¹t totally sure. And then I put it out of my mind, lost in thought over my intense week in the land.
As we approached the airport, the darkness of night yielded to the first signs of daylight. Suddenly my driver reached for the radio, turned it on and I recognized the sounds of one of Israel¹s state sponsored stations. According to Jewish law, upon the first signs of dawn, alah hashachar in Hebrew, a Jew is required to recite the shma . And here on the radio, was a voice reciting the shma . My cabdriver was reciting the prayer with the radio, and with the rest of the people Israel-- Shma Yisrael, Adonay Eloheinu, Adonai Echad.
As I looked at my bareheaded cabbie recite the shma in tandem with Israel¹s state sponsored radio station at the halachically indicated time, all of the conflict and divisions and tensions of the previous week dissolved. I was overtaken by the primary meaning of the Shma-- Oneness, unity, cosmic harmony, peace. I was in the Jewish homeland, hearing a prayer that has been the anthem of our people for over 3000 years. I was experiencing the very oneness that is the message of the Shma.
Isn¹t it ironic how we learn some of the most profound lessons by sheer coincidence. Or perhaps, it was the hand of God that put me in that cab, a hand that we see only when we are fully present to the holy moments that happen to us every day.
It struck me that the religious credo of Judaism, the shma, conveyed the same message of the Jewish peoplehood mantra of my youth--We are One, We are One, We are One. Jewish religion, Jewish people-they are of one piece.
So what¹s a rabbi to do when his secular cabdriver becomes his rebbe? I joined my cabbie and, the rest of my family, past, present and future, and said: ³Shma Yisrael, adonay eloheinu, adonay echad²--Listen up Israel, YHWE is our God; we are one with that God and we are one with each other².
We are, indeed, one. It is time that we live that truth.
E Pluribus Unum Project
Inaugural Keynote Address 1997
The Buddhist tradition has a teaching about "mindfulness" which has always impressed me. It is, in my view, the essence of a spiritual life that is at the root of all religions. I want to ask you to be intentionally mindful for just a moment about how you have come to be here today. Consider how many people and experiences have given you direction in life. Consider the challenges and obstacles that you have had to overcome. Consider your good fortune at having heard about this conference and at having been selected. I want you to know that you are not here because you are smart, though many of you are.
I want you to know that you are here not because you are talented, though many of you are. You are here because we thought that you had the potential to be wise. And only wise people have the ability to know that it takes sacrifice of self-interest to advance the common good. That is what it will take to build a better society.
I need to talk to you about three things in order to define key terms that we will be using during this conference. It will help set forth what we have planned for you during this inaugural E Pluribus Unum Conference. Those three things are religion, social justice and the common good, and finally, the meaning of E Pluribus Unum.
RELIGION
In the history of human civilization, religion is the most common way that people have divided themselves. Through particular beliefs, customs, values and rituals, religion has provided humanity with a symbolic way to give life meaning. Unfortunately, for much of human history, the stronger one's allegiance to one's religion, the more likely one was to reject and ridicule other religions.
There is a very big difference between righteousness and self-righteousness. Righteousness is when we act towards others in a spirit of justice and compassion. Self-righteousness is when we come to be convinced that the religion, lifestyle or philosophy of living that we have come to embrace is superior to alternate paths.When we cross the line between righteousness and self-righteousness, we find ourselves in the territory that leads to prejudice, hatred and death.
In a similar way, there is good religion and bad religion. Bad religion is triumphant. It confuses ends and means. It places doctrines over people.It accepts injustice as a divinely-ordained condition, beyond the ability of humanity to affect. It breeds self-righteousness.Good religion recognizes that there are many equally valid paths to God. It puts a premium on acts of kindness and compassion for others. It is based on the belief that every person is made in the image of God.
Good religion promotes the belief that a human being's duty here on earth is to repair a broken world. In the Jewish tradition, we call this concept tikkun olam.
We need to recognize that every religion represented in this room today has elements of good religion and bad. Ironically, when our loyalty to our own religion blinds us to the truth and wisdom of another's tradition, we go down the road that has given religion a bad name. This is why it is so easy to hate religion. This is why so many dismiss it. This is why so many have overlooked the possibilities that religion offers to create an alternative reality to the world we currently find ourselves in.
My hope is that this conference will help you learn the difference between good religion and bad and thereby, make religion a more effective tool for the betterment of our world.
SOCIAL JUSTICE AND THE COMMON GOOD
The Bible gives us a paradigm of how religion can and has functioned in the world. We start out with an idyllic past in the first books of Genesis. God, representing the perfect unity of creation, fashions a perfect place on earth called Eden. Adam is the first human being conscious of a transcendent power beyond self. From Adam, all humanity descends, and thus, the brotherhood of humanity.
Soon, humanity is "out of Eden" and reality sets in. We see a world of murder, fratricidal jealousy, slavery and liberation, territorial conquest and displaced populations, alienation, promises made and promises broken, disobedience, and punishment. This is not just the Biblical story; it is our story. It is the world that we live in. It is the wilderness.
Starting with the idyllic past and then taking us through the wilderness of reality, the Bible leads us to understand its messianic vision of the future. Part of the spiritual vision of the Bible is its vision of a messianic future. We find it in many places in Scripture but nowhere is it better articulated than in the book of Micah ch. 4 (also paralleled in Isaiah ch.2) "It shall come to pass in the end of days that the mountain of God's house shall be established on the top of the mountains. And all nations shall come to it and we will walk in God's path. They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."
Life is a journey through a wilderness filled with much pain and suffering, injustice and inequality. Religion has the power to move us toward the messianic future.
Consider the great moral giants just of this century: Mahatma Ghandi developed his philosophy of non-violence out of his Hindu roots. He used it to overturn British colonial control of India and later tried to quell the violence in his native land between Moslems and Hindus.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. admired the teachings of Ghandi greatly and applied the same principles to advance the cause of civil rights in America. His call for social justice pricked the conscience of an entire nation.
Dietrich Boenhoeffer was a Protestant minister in Germany during the Nazi regime. He deplored the silence of the church in the face of Hitler's tyranny. Arrested for plotting to assassinate Hitler, he was executed two months before the end of the war, but not before he authored Prisoner for God, his call for an ethically based Christianity.
I could go on and cite the way that Elie Wiesel used his personal experience as a Holocaust survivor and his understanding of Jewish tradition to become an international crusader for human rights. Or how the Dali Lama continues to offer a model of spiritual resistance out of his Buddhist tradition to the Chinese occupation of Tibet. Or how Archbishop Desmond Tutu challenged the policy of apartheid in South Africa from pulpits in that country and around the world.
These are examples of people whose lives bear witness to the incredible power of faith to stand up to evil and oppression and to rally people of conscience to a given cause. There are thousands of other such religious role models for social justice and you will meet some of them during these next three weeks.
What has given these individuals the strength to be "drum majors for justice" (MLK) in a world filled with poverty, oppression and selfishness? Good religion gives people just such strength. A person of faith believes that good can triumph over evil despite the injustice that they see in the world and lives his/her life in a way to make that belief true.
In order to acquire such moral courage and strength you must learn to simultaneously be committed to and rooted in the particularities of your own faith and also, reach across the boundaries of your faith to understand and to empathize with those whose beliefs are totally different from you.
Social justice is to religion what love is to family. One is the institution; the other is a quality of being that makes the institution worthwhile. Just as a family without love is dysfunctional, so is a religion that does not teach and manifest a deep commitment to social justice, dysfunctional. It is a religion that has lost its way.
E PLURIBUS UNUM: What are we doing here?
The sense of tribe is deeply embedded in the human soul. Religion is only one example (e.g. professions, geography, race, club, nationality). And tribalism is gradually overtaking our nation and our world. Millions have been slaughtered just in the past few years due to ancient tribal animosities in Africa, in the Balkans, in the former Soviet Union, in Cambodia and in other places around the globe.
Nor is America immune. Our body politic easily falls prey to the competition between American tribes (e.g. corporate interests, professional groups, ethnic groups, etc.). Each is determined to advance its own, group self-interest regardless of the consequences to other groups or to society at large. The victim is "the common good".
This is precisely where E Pluribus Unum- "Out of the many, one" comes into play. This latin phrase, which appears on your dollar bills, was coined as the motto of our nation with reference to the necessity of creating one centralized country out of the colonies of the Revolutionary era. Since that time, the phrase has come to mean more.
We are, in every sense of the word, a pluribus. Our differences in religious backgrounds just happens to be the most obvious way that this conference has grouped you. But we wear multiple identities: families, ethnic groups, states, soon colleges and universities. We root for different ballclubs, we speak the same language with different accents, jargons and sometimes, even meanings. (ex. "bad").
We are therefore a grand experiment. Our hope is that we can use the very religious traditions that, in fact, divide us from each other, to unite us. We hope to do that, not by minimizing the importance of our respective faith traditions, but rather by exploring those core values of our respective faith traditions that might bring us closer to working in partnership towards creating "the common good". The key to creating a democratic, pluralistic society that demonstrates concern for the outsider, the oppressed, the hungry and the weak is not to make us all the same. We are strengthened when we celebrate our differences and, simultaneously, recognize that we are all enriched when we recognize our common humanity.
If we can, out of our diversity, create an intentional, spiritual community for three weeks, modeling tolerance and respect in speech, religious practice, and beliefs, we will gain a glimpse of the possibilities of a truly civil society.
We have created a program with four strands: academic, community service, spiritual arts and worship and community life. Some of this program is already prepared; much of it you will co-create with each other. It has been designed to bring to the fore the special gifts that each of you have to contribute to the common good. It is your ability to realize those gifts and exercise them in society that will determine how well we can move our society closer to the messianic ideal of the Bible.
CONCLUSION
I have had the good fortune to spend a good deal of time in Jerusalem. I've always been intrigued by its name. In Hebrew Jerusalem means "city of peace (shalom)". How odd for a city that has been the focal point for religious wars for several thousand years! Even today this city is divided into religious sections and is at the center of controversy between competing national aspirations.But consider this. The Hebrew word "shalom" also means "wholeness". Perhaps the message is that only when work through our differences and learn to live together can we achieve true wholeness and true peace. Perhaps that is the significance of the end of the quote from the prophet Isaiah that I quoted earlier, part of the Bible's messianic ideal for humankind: "For out of Zion shall come forth truth, and the word of God from Jerusalem".
We here are a microcosm of the diversity of society. We will have to work hard to experience shalom/wholeness/oneness. If we can achieve a glimpse of E Pluribus Unum, however fleetingly during these 3 weeks together, each of the 80+ of us will be a candle, able to light a way in the wilderness, to a better tomorrow.
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