The work to embody Jewish values in the decisions of our national government did not end on Election Day, when 78 percent of the Jewish vote went to the Obama-Biden ticket. For the task will be hard to fulfill.
The seeds that many of us have sown together over these last years are but come to their first sprouting:
· The seeds of organizing to make peace in Iraq and the broader Middle East.
· The seed of insisting that the abundance that comes from God and earth and human effort must be shared, lest its concentration in the hands of the super-wealthy become a blood-clot endangering our whole economic circulatory system –- as indeed has happened.
· The seed
of urging our country to address the biggest issue ever to face the human race – the climate crisis of global scorching.
Now the seeds we sowed have sprouted -- into a President and Congress who promise to respond.
But that is not the end of the story. For sprouts are only the next step toward fruition. To harvest our vision will take more work.
No President, no Congress, can harvest the fruits of peace, justice, and sustainability unless there is a community in motion --- a grass-roots movement --- demanding and creating crucial changes in private behavior as well as public policy. That is work we need to do together.
For too many years, some parts of the American Jewish community have held back from our true calling to seek peace and pursue it -- for American soldiers and families, for Iraqi cities, for Israel, and for the broader Middle East.
For too many years, even the Jewish desire for social justice in America has been blunted by failing to connect that hope with the need to end the Iraq War and to work toward a broader peace. How can a trillion dollars robbed from schools and healthcare and firefighters to pay for death and destruction NOT be a domestic issue?
The gathering will restart the energies of a Jewish activism that sees "domestic" and "foreign" policy as a seamless whole.
Speakers and workshop leaders will include Congressman Jerrold Nadler, Amy Goodman of Democracy Now, Rabbi David Saperstein of the Religious Action Center in Washington, Rabbi Peter Knobel, president of the Reform rabbinical association, former Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman, Sammie Moshenberg of the National Council of Jewish Women, Leslie Cagan of United for Peace and Justice, Jeremy Ben-Ami of J Street, Michael Ratner, Center for Constitutional Rights, Rabbi Or Rose of Righteous Indignation, Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin of the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL) --- - and many other luminaries of the newest and oldest generations of activist Jews.
Why do this? Because Jewish values and wisdom teach us to pursue peace, justice, and healing of the earth. Because no President, no Congress can make change happen and heal America without a vigorous grass-roots movement organizing for change, to counter entrenched top-down interests. And because if there is serious Jewish involvement, the grass-roots movement for change in America will be considerably stronger.
Our goals are (a) to put ending the Iraq war and turning to domestic needs high on the agenda of major Jewish organizations, not only on paper but in their commitment to mobilize vigorous action by their members, and (b) to involve grass-roots Jews of all sorts, in or out of the organizational Jewish world.
Why choose November 23? We will have enough time to start organizing before January 20, when the new US government will come to office. We intend to leave November 23 with a Jewish action network ready to move quickly.
But Jews do not work in the Jewish community alone. We are also an important nurturing energy for multireligious action.
With this in mind and heart, we can join in gathering Americans' energy to a multireligious effort to bring the Spirit into Action, this January.
Barak Obama will become President at noon on Tuesday, January 20. The day before is Martin Luther King's Birthday! His close co-worker Abraham Joshua Heschel's yohrzeit is January 14!. (Still believe God didn't plan this moment?)
Exactly one year before he died, speaking at Riverside Church in New York, Dr. King called on Americans to cure ourselves of the destructive "triplets," as he called them, of racism, militarism, and materialism in America. To move forward in a revolution of values toward becoming the Beloved Community.
The Shalom Center, along with the Tent of Abraham, Hagar, and Sarah; the Olive Branch Interfaith Peace Partnership; and leaders of the National Council of Churches and the Islamic Society of North America are working to make this moment a time for Americans to recommit ourselves to the fullness of Dr. King's vision.
And still further in the task of growing toward the holy harvest: This spring will mark 40 years since the original Freedom Seder. On the first anniversary of Dr. King's death, it honored the freedom struggles of Blacks in modern America as well as Jews in ancient Egypt. In Washington and all around the country, The Shalom Center will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Freedom Seder. Once again this Seder will be interfaith, multireligious, multiracial. This time it will focus on the "Ten Plagues" that today are endangering the earth ---- and on what we can do to bring Ten Blessings to the earth instead.
Of course, these three moments will not end the journey; they can be important steps in the long harvest. Out of them must grow networks of change to make sure that entrenched interests do not paralyze the efforts to bring change about.
Rabbi Arthur Waskow is director of The Shalom Center and the author of Down-to-Earth Judaism, among other books on Jewish practice and public policy.
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