What-We-Talk-About-When-We-Talk-About-Israel Shabbat Take Me Higher
Friday, March 17 at 7:00 pm
Indoors at Electric Lodge
1416 Electric Avenue
A Shabbat Service Exploring
the Role of Reason, Compassion and Curiosity
as Spiritual Practices for Understanding Israel
through Prayer, Dialogue and Group Reflection.
with
Mike Kohan
Kimberly Haynes
Open Temple Band
Rabbi Lori
Compassion and Curiosity
and
You
To Jews everywhere, it is time to double down on our ability to unpack the complexities of the most incredible social experiment since American Democracy and not turn our hearts and minds away from Israel through reflex-partisanship. Americans have grown so incredibly partisan that we have forgotten the concept of guardianship. While most of us are not citizens of Israel, everyone with a Jewish Soul is invited into the guardianship of Israel, which requires education and understanding, and as שומרים (Shomrim/Guardians) we must find a way to cultivate within us voices of reason that are guided by compassion and curiosity. I dare add that exercising this discernment conditions us for what lies ahead on our own soils. A call for Justice in Israel, an end to thoughtless partisanship and the dawn of an age where we accept our role and responsibility as Guardians of Reason. It takes a willingness to look at the other, let them know that we disagree, and do the hard work of converting difference into מחלוקת לשם שמים (Disagreement for the Sake of Heaven).
כן יהי רצון – Inshallah – Let It Be
For more info, email info@opentemple.org.
“Sing unto God a new song.”
-Psalm 96
If God is already tired, as suggests the Psalm, of hearing the old song, all the more so will ordinary mortals be.
-Alcalay (20th c. Jewish lexicographer)
The Open Temple.
Sing a new Song.