The Edmonton Good Friday Outdoor Way of the Cross brings together members of the Christian social justice community, with a message for everyone, regardless of faith. Once again, this year's event had to be done in video form because of the pandemic, and once again I was happy to help with directing, filming, and editing. In the video, local leaders contribute reflections on environmental justice, homelessness, immigration and systemic racism, Indigenous issues, and more. The video will premiere on YouTube at 10 a.m. this Friday, April 2.
Showing posts with label interfaith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label interfaith. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 31, 2021
Monday, December 12, 2016
Human Rights Champion Award
On December 11, I was honoured to receive a Human Rights Champion Award from the John Humphrey Centre for Peace and Human Rights. I was described in the awards brochure as "a pioneering media artist in Edmonton and a community organizer." Many of my colleagues from the Edmonton Coalition Against War and Racism, the Edmonton Interfaith Centre for Education and Action, and the Moving Forward with Reconciliation working group, as well as many of my general activist friends, were there to support me.
Here's my acceptance speech, in writing and video:
When I showed up at my first peace march in September of 2005, camera in hand, I had no idea that 11 years later I would be standing here receiving an award like this.
Here's my acceptance speech, in writing and video:
When I showed up at my first peace march in September of 2005, camera in hand, I had no idea that 11 years later I would be standing here receiving an award like this.
I firmly believe that we all have a role to play when it comes to peace and human rights, and that every contribution has significance. Our voices count, whether it is helping organize events, connecting communities, or simply showing up to support an equitable society, to say no to racism, and to say yes to peace and an anti-war government.
I also hope that my example will help influence others to get involved with the peace movement and human rights. We need your voices and talents.
Thank you to the John Humphrey Centre for holding these awards and for bestowing this honour upon me. And to all of my friends and supporters over the years: peace, shalom, thank you.
Monday, May 16, 2016
Weeping for the Land: Jewish Spiritual Solutions to Healing the Environment
I was privileged to be asked to speak at the Edmonton Interfaith Centre for Education and Action's one-day symposium "Weeping for the Land: Spiritual Perspectives on and Strategies for Healing an Ailing Planet" on May 12. My topic was Judaism and spiritual solutions to healing the planet. Below is the text of my talk, and the video from it.
Environmental Justice is a Jewish value. First of all, I want to clarify that I am speaking as an individual. I am not a rabbi and I am certainly not a scientist. I am an activist, and much of what I will present is from that perspective. Jewish tradition teaches that God created the world, and as such as ownership of the land, and it is our job, as stewards of the land, to protect and preserve it. This is a value that is common to other faiths, particularly Abrahamic ones, but there are some specific Jewish teachings that deal with Judaism and the environment. I am going to examine just a few of these that are based in the Torah and Talmud. Much of what I am going to discuss comes from GreenFaith.org and is written by Rabbi Lawrence Troster ("Ten Jewish Teachings on Judaism and the Environment"). What follows are either his words or my paraphrases of them: The Torah has numerous laws, which attempt to redress the power and economic imbalances in human society and Creation. Examples are the Sabbatical year (Exodus 23:11, Leviticus 25:2-5, Deuteronomy 15:1-4) and the Jubilee (Leviticus 25:8-24). There is a whole program in the Torah for creating a balanced distribution of resources across society (Exodus 22:24-26, Leviticus 25:36-37, Deuteronomy 23:20-1, 24:6,10-13,17). This is an expression of the concept of Tzedek, which means righteousness, justice and equity. It is the value, which tries to correct the imbalances, which humans create in society and in the natural world. In the modern world globalization has strived to achieve the free movement of people, information, money, goods and services but it can also create major disruptions in local cultures and environments. While globalization has created great wealth for millions of people, many millions more have been bypassed by its benefits and it has had in some cases a negative impact upon the environment and human rights. The Jewish concept of Tzedek demands that we create a worldwide economy that is sustainable and that is equitable in the distribution of wealth and resources. Torah: Prohibition of wasteful consumption
Deut. 20_19-20 “When in your war against a city you have to besiege it a long time in order to capture it, you must not destroy its trees, wielding the ax against them. You may eat of them, but you must not cut them down. Are trees of the field human to withdraw before you into the besieged city? Only trees that you know do not yield food may be destroyed; you may cut them down for constructing siege works against the city that is waging war on you, until it has been reduced.” This law was expanded into a mitzvah (commandment) of Bal Taschlit – Do Not Destroy, and includes the wanton destruction of household goods, clothes, buildings, springs, food, or wasteful consumption of anything. “Modesty in consumption is a value that Jews have held for centuries. For example one is not supposed to be excessive in eating and drinking or in the kind of clothes that one wears (Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Discernment,chapter 5). Jews are obligated to consider carefully our real needs whenever we purchase anything. We are obligated when we have a simchah (a celebration like a wedding or Bar Mitzvah) to consider whether we need to have elaborate meals and wasteful decorations. We are obligated to consider our energy use and the sources from which it comes.” Torah: Prohibition of the Extinction of Species and Causing undue pain to non-human creatures
This is an underlying reason for certain laws pertaining to Kashruth – kosher – food, in terms of the procedure by which to kill an animal in a way that causes as little pain as possible (supposedly, although some Jewish people, like in the general population, have taken this one step further by becoming vegetarian). “If along the road, you chance upon a bird’s nest, in any tree or on the ground, with fledglings or eggs and the mother sitting over the fledglings or on the eggs, do not take the mother with her young. Let the mother go, and take only the young, in order that you may fare well and have a long life.” (Deuteronomy 22:6-7) Ramban (Moses ben Nachman, Nachmanides, 1194-1270) in his commentary to the Torah wrote: “This also is an explanatory commandment of the prohibition you shall not kill it [the mother] and its young both in one day (Leviticus 22:28). The reason for both [commandments] is that we should not have a cruel heart and not be compassionate, or it may be that Scripture does not permit us to destroy a species altogether, although it permits slaughter [for food] within that group. Now the person who kills the mother and the young in one day or takes them when they are free to fly, [it is regarded] as though they have destroyed that species.” The spiritual solution for environmental issues is, like other issues of social justice: Tikkun Olam: The perfection/fixing of the world is in our hands. From Greenfaith.org:
There is a midrash (Rabbinic commentary on the Bible) which Jewish environmentalists are fond of quoting: “When God created the first human beings, God led them around the Garden of Eden and said: “Look at my works! See how beautiful they are—how excellent! For your sake I created them all. See to it that you do not spoil and destroy My world; for if you do, there will be no one else to repair it.” (Midrash Kohelet Rabbah, 1 on Ecclesiastes 7:13) In the Jewish liturgy there is a prayer called Aleinu in which we ask that the world be soon perfected under the sovereignty of God (le-takein ‘olam be-malkhut Shaddai). Tikkun olam, the perfecting or the repairing of the world, has become a major theme in modern Jewish social justice theology. It is usually expressed as an activity, which must be done by humans in partnership with God. It is an important concept in light of the task ahead in environmentalism. In our ignorance and our greed, we have damaged the world and silenced many of the voices of the choir of Creation. Now we must fix it. There is no one else to repair it but us. My addition: Tikkun Olam is a way that many contemporary Jews express their faith, even if they are not religious or observant in the traditional sense. It is a call to action in a practical sense, with a spiritual undercurrent. But in what I just read from Rabbi Troster, I think this is a collective “us” - all of us, in our different traditions have a responsibility to protect Creation.
Environmental Justice is a Jewish value. First of all, I want to clarify that I am speaking as an individual. I am not a rabbi and I am certainly not a scientist. I am an activist, and much of what I will present is from that perspective. Jewish tradition teaches that God created the world, and as such as ownership of the land, and it is our job, as stewards of the land, to protect and preserve it. This is a value that is common to other faiths, particularly Abrahamic ones, but there are some specific Jewish teachings that deal with Judaism and the environment. I am going to examine just a few of these that are based in the Torah and Talmud. Much of what I am going to discuss comes from GreenFaith.org and is written by Rabbi Lawrence Troster ("Ten Jewish Teachings on Judaism and the Environment"). What follows are either his words or my paraphrases of them: The Torah has numerous laws, which attempt to redress the power and economic imbalances in human society and Creation. Examples are the Sabbatical year (Exodus 23:11, Leviticus 25:2-5, Deuteronomy 15:1-4) and the Jubilee (Leviticus 25:8-24). There is a whole program in the Torah for creating a balanced distribution of resources across society (Exodus 22:24-26, Leviticus 25:36-37, Deuteronomy 23:20-1, 24:6,10-13,17). This is an expression of the concept of Tzedek, which means righteousness, justice and equity. It is the value, which tries to correct the imbalances, which humans create in society and in the natural world. In the modern world globalization has strived to achieve the free movement of people, information, money, goods and services but it can also create major disruptions in local cultures and environments. While globalization has created great wealth for millions of people, many millions more have been bypassed by its benefits and it has had in some cases a negative impact upon the environment and human rights. The Jewish concept of Tzedek demands that we create a worldwide economy that is sustainable and that is equitable in the distribution of wealth and resources. Torah: Prohibition of wasteful consumption
Deut. 20_19-20 “When in your war against a city you have to besiege it a long time in order to capture it, you must not destroy its trees, wielding the ax against them. You may eat of them, but you must not cut them down. Are trees of the field human to withdraw before you into the besieged city? Only trees that you know do not yield food may be destroyed; you may cut them down for constructing siege works against the city that is waging war on you, until it has been reduced.” This law was expanded into a mitzvah (commandment) of Bal Taschlit – Do Not Destroy, and includes the wanton destruction of household goods, clothes, buildings, springs, food, or wasteful consumption of anything. “Modesty in consumption is a value that Jews have held for centuries. For example one is not supposed to be excessive in eating and drinking or in the kind of clothes that one wears (Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Discernment,chapter 5). Jews are obligated to consider carefully our real needs whenever we purchase anything. We are obligated when we have a simchah (a celebration like a wedding or Bar Mitzvah) to consider whether we need to have elaborate meals and wasteful decorations. We are obligated to consider our energy use and the sources from which it comes.” Torah: Prohibition of the Extinction of Species and Causing undue pain to non-human creatures
This is an underlying reason for certain laws pertaining to Kashruth – kosher – food, in terms of the procedure by which to kill an animal in a way that causes as little pain as possible (supposedly, although some Jewish people, like in the general population, have taken this one step further by becoming vegetarian). “If along the road, you chance upon a bird’s nest, in any tree or on the ground, with fledglings or eggs and the mother sitting over the fledglings or on the eggs, do not take the mother with her young. Let the mother go, and take only the young, in order that you may fare well and have a long life.” (Deuteronomy 22:6-7) Ramban (Moses ben Nachman, Nachmanides, 1194-1270) in his commentary to the Torah wrote: “This also is an explanatory commandment of the prohibition you shall not kill it [the mother] and its young both in one day (Leviticus 22:28). The reason for both [commandments] is that we should not have a cruel heart and not be compassionate, or it may be that Scripture does not permit us to destroy a species altogether, although it permits slaughter [for food] within that group. Now the person who kills the mother and the young in one day or takes them when they are free to fly, [it is regarded] as though they have destroyed that species.” The spiritual solution for environmental issues is, like other issues of social justice: Tikkun Olam: The perfection/fixing of the world is in our hands. From Greenfaith.org:
There is a midrash (Rabbinic commentary on the Bible) which Jewish environmentalists are fond of quoting: “When God created the first human beings, God led them around the Garden of Eden and said: “Look at my works! See how beautiful they are—how excellent! For your sake I created them all. See to it that you do not spoil and destroy My world; for if you do, there will be no one else to repair it.” (Midrash Kohelet Rabbah, 1 on Ecclesiastes 7:13) In the Jewish liturgy there is a prayer called Aleinu in which we ask that the world be soon perfected under the sovereignty of God (le-takein ‘olam be-malkhut Shaddai). Tikkun olam, the perfecting or the repairing of the world, has become a major theme in modern Jewish social justice theology. It is usually expressed as an activity, which must be done by humans in partnership with God. It is an important concept in light of the task ahead in environmentalism. In our ignorance and our greed, we have damaged the world and silenced many of the voices of the choir of Creation. Now we must fix it. There is no one else to repair it but us. My addition: Tikkun Olam is a way that many contemporary Jews express their faith, even if they are not religious or observant in the traditional sense. It is a call to action in a practical sense, with a spiritual undercurrent. But in what I just read from Rabbi Troster, I think this is a collective “us” - all of us, in our different traditions have a responsibility to protect Creation.
Sunday, February 07, 2016
World Interfaith Harmony Week 2016
World Interfaith Harmony Week is marked in Edmonton during the first week of February. It was as first proposed at the UN General Assembly on September 23, 2010 by H.M. King Abdullah II of Jordan. This year, the Edmonton Interfaith Centre for Education and Action organized its event on February 5 in City Hall. The theme this year is “Love of God, or love of the good, and love of the neighbour." I, along with EICEA Coordinator Netta Phillet, spoke on the topic from a Jewish perspective. What I said is below, and draws heavily from my talk in September at the Festival of Faiths. At the very bottom is a video of the two of us, so you can get a chance to hear what Netta had to say.
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In Judaism, when it comes to how to relate to those who have no faith, our scriptures are relatively silent on the matter. There are verses in the Old Testament that can be interpreted on how we should treat others in general, starting with the story of Adam and Eve, which shows that we are all connected, we all come from the same beginnings, and as thus are all equal. There are also passages in Isaiah and Proverbs that deal with how we treat people. However, these are not specifically Jewish, as other religions follow the Old Testament as well.
One of my favourite, and best known, comments on how we treat each other that has a Jewish basis is from the Talmud (oral law which was later codified in writing). It's the story of Rabbi Hillel - a rabbi who lived around the same time as Jesus. The story goes that a non-Jew came to Rabbi Hillel and said he would convert to Judaism if the rabbi could teach the man the entire Torah in the same time he could stand on one foot. Rabbi Hillel's response: "What is hateful, do not do to your fellow man. That is the whole of the Torah; the rest is commentary." (Talmud Shabbat 31a)
Jewish identity can be multi-faceted, especially in our contemporary world. There are many Jewish people who would not label themselves as religious, but follow some of our customs and traditions out of cultural, rather than religious observance, for example the dietary laws of not eating pork or shellfish, or joining together with family to celebrate the Passover seder. You can even be an atheist and still identify as Jewish in a cultural sense, or as an ethnic identity. My own Jewish spiritual practise leans heavily on the observance of tikkun olam, which means "healing" or "repairing the world". In this way, "loving the good" or "loving the neighbour" is all part and parcel with social justice and striving for a world of peace and understanding between all people.
Monday, October 19, 2015
Combatting Hate at the Festival of Faiths
On Saturday, September 19, I was part of a panel on the topic of "Combatting Hate" at the first annual Festival of Faiths. Organized by youth affiliated with the John Humphrey Centre for Peace and Human Rights, the Festival of Faiths is intended to teach others about different faiths by people who practice them through information tables, panel discussions, and performances.
The Combatting Hate panel consisted of myself speaking as a Jewish person, as well as representatives from the local Muslim and United Church of Canada communities. It was moderated by a Unitarian Universalist minister.We discussed hate crimes in Edmonton and what everyone can do to help prevent such things from happening: ways to build interfaith understanding in our diverse society.
I was not sure what format the panel would take prior to the event, so I prepared some notes in the event that I had to give some sort of introductory talk. As it turned out, the panel was a discussion led by questions from the moderator, then the audience. I did, however, refer to my notes at several times when responding to questions. Here are my notes - I was clear in making it known I was speaking as a lay person. The event was hard-pressed to find a rabbi because the event was held on the Jewish Sabbath (steps are being taken to prevent this from happening next year).
1. There are no specific Jewish teachings on hatred and racism I am aware of.
2. We can look at the Old Testament, starting with the story of Adam and Eve, which shows that we are all connected, we all come from the same beginnings, and as thus are all equal.
3. There are passages in Isaiah and Proverbs that deal with how we treat people, but again, these are not specifically Jewish (other religions follow the Old Testament also).
4. However, one of my favourite, and best known, comments on how we treat each other is actually from the Talmud (oral law which was later codified in writing). The story of Rabbi Hillel - a rabbi who lived around the same time as Jesus. The story goes that a non-Jew came to Rabbi Hillel and said he would convert to Judaism if the rabbi could teach the man the entire Torah in the same time he could stand on one foot. Rabbi Hillel's response: "What is hateful, do not do to your fellow man. That is the whole of the Torah; the rest is commentary." (Talmud Shabbat 31a)
5. So, as a Jewish person, I find a solution, or preventative measure, against hatred is for us to dialogue and learn from each other about what our faiths and cultures really mean, to recognize the true teachings from ones that only serve the purposes of political leaders or others who seek power or operate on greed and envy, who use faith to try to reach those aims.
6. As a Jewish person, I feel we each need to lead by example, and to learn from our history. We are as prone as anyone to being perpetrators of hatred and prejudice. My mother told me stories of teachers at her Yeshiva (Jewish day school) expressing anti-Arab sentiments. There are Jewish jokes about the stupidity of non-Jews, for example.
7. There is a misinterpretation as to the meaning of Jewish people being the "Chosen People." It has been used against us, and by us to be against others. It doesn't mean we are special or better - it means we were chosen to receive the Torah. So, we need to also have a good understanding of our own faith and culture.Here is a video from the discussion - the battery in my camera died before the Q&A started: Here is a sound file of the entire panel discussion, including the Q&A:
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