Why the future of American Judaism as we know it depends on the survival of the Jewish state? This article is a must read for all those who want to understand Jews and Israel, it is one of the most comprehensive articles I have read and gives an insight into understanding Jews. The story is not only of Jewish people, but most other minorities can relate with this experience:

I have written my own piece at Huffington post - Who am I to worry about Israelis and Palestinians? What inspires me to be involved in the Israel Palestine conflict? The following is the story of my struggle to see a cohesive world, the story will take you through different emotions but at the end, I hope you feel a sense of completeness of the story. Due to its length, it is a three part article. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-ghouse/israel-and-palestine-moving-forward_b_1258261.html

Here are some of the most powerful excerpts from the article below.

The following Paragraph is precisely my understanding and reasons for the support of Israel, mind you not at the cost of Justice to Palestinians but with fairness to all the ones in the conflict. I am baffled with the similarity of my articulation for the last several years and the following piece that has just appeared on August 20. 2012.

“That newfound confidence has historical antecedents, of course: American Jews’ confidence resembles that of the Jews of Cordoba—who were forcibly converted, burned alive at the stake, and summarily expelled in the Spanish Inquisition. The Jews of Berlin in 1930 also believed they had found the ultimate enlightened home, that the dark days of Europe would never return. And in the space of but a few years, German Jewry was erased.”

“In ways we do not sufficiently recognize, Israel has changed the existential condition of Jews everywhere, even in America. Without the State of Israel, the self-confidence and sense of belonging that American Jews now take for granted would quickly disappear.”

A home is where on drops all the guards and feels a sense of comfort and security. I have expressed the same sentiments in many of my writings including the one at this blog.

“Israel, like it or not, is not just a homeland to Israelis. It is also a “state unto the Diaspora”; the state that, even from afar, secures the life and instills the passions of Jews all over the world.”

Indeed, that is the case with most immigrants, they feel home where they were born and their ancestors came from. Most of the first generation Indians call India their home, like wise it is the same with British, Irish, Italian, German, Japanese, Pakistanis, Arabs, Mexicans, Chinese, Iraqis and others. For the first Generation of Jewish people after Israel was created, even though they were born here, Israel is home to them. It is the second generation and the ones after that whose sense of home is in America, the second generation continues to struggle but for the third generation and up - it is America first, America is home. There will be nothing else in their psyche, other than what would be injected into them.

“But then, as this thinking goes, if Israel refuses to budge, it is Israel that is responsible for the impasse. Faced with a choice between loyalty to their humanitarian values or to their parents’ Zionism, they have chosen the former.”

I love the above it, "Loyalty to their humanitarian values" - is a profound statement applicable to 2^nd generation of Muslims, Jews, Immigrant Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, Zoroastrians, Buddhists and other immigrants. This is inherent in all humanity no matter where we live. I consider that an American Value. Unlike all other nations, Americans values are egalitarian, humanitarian and about treating others fairly and equitably. Its part of American psyche and I am blessed to have that sense flow through veins.

“Sensitive to the underdog everywhere, and with a deep-seated belief in fairness, they insisted and continue to insist upon balancing the scales. The Palestinians, they decided, needed a state.”

This is the core value of all religions, but a very passionate value of America. It is the case with all Americans who are born here. Indeed the follow paragraphs also represent Muslims, and other immigrants in America.

“But amazingly, 50 percent of those 35 years old and younger said that Israel’s destruction would not be a personal tragedy.”

“Ours is the first generation in which the centrality of Zion in Jewish dreams is beginning to fade. It is fading rapidly, and we know why. Part of it has to do with the fact that Israel’s supporters have framed the conversation about the Jewish State in terms of the conflict with the Palestinians. Even among knowledgeable and committed Jews, an oral Rorschach test in response to the word “Israel” evokes responses such as “checkpoints,” “occupation,” or “settlements”—as though the conflict were all that Israel is about.”

I hope a day will come in the world, where everyone feels home wherever they are. It is a two sided effort. I am passionate about justice and freedom and Israel Palestine is an issue that I hope to contribute to bring security to Jews and justice to Palestinians.

Mike Ghouse is committed to building cohesive societies and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day - This article is at - http://israel-palestine-dialogue.blogspot.com/2012/08/no-jewish-people-without-israel.html as well as the source below:

No Jewish People Without Israel

Why the future of American Judaism as we know it depends on the survival of the Jewish state By Daniel Gordis|August 20, 2012 7:00 AM|

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/109429/no-jewish-people-without-israel?all=1

Afghanistan: Obama Capitulates to the War Makers

Obama'a confusion. I am a great fan of Rabbi Lerner and I can relate with him in this article, he looks at the situation as though he loves both sides and want them to understand each other and learn to co-exist. I would like to add my comments to this article; we cannot be safe unless others around us are, and we cannot have peace if those who surround us are not in peace, it is in our interests to seek peace for every one, peace and security exist in mutuality. - Mike Ghouse

http://www.tikkun.org/article.php/jan10_lerner_editorial_afghanistan

Obama's decision to escalate the war in Afghanistan represents a decisive endorsement of the strategy of domination. Instead of using his presidency to challenge the ideology of the war makers, Obama has become one of the most brilliant and nuanced articulators of the "war as the path to peace" worldview. It is essentially the same argument that was used to defend the Cold War, the war in Vietnam, and the projection of U.S. military power around the world for the past sixty-five years.

"We must begin," Obama told the world on December 10, 2009, while receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in Stockholm, "by acknowledging the hard truth: we will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations -- acting individually or in concert -- will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified."

Obama doesn't tell us why he thinks this is true, except to point to the past. Now imagine if a leader had said, "We will not eradicate ... in our lifetime" and substitute in that blank space any of the following: slavery, sexism, apartheid, segregation, hunger, environmental destruction, child abuse, cancer, Alzheimer's disease, or any other global evil. Many of us would probably say, "Whoa, you might be right -- we can't know for sure -- but certainly whether you are right or not on any of these issues will be affected by whether you prioritize the abolition of these problems. If our leaders start by assuming that x, y, or z cannot be abolished, they will likely put less energy into doing so than they might, so this kind of diagnosis becomes self-fulfilling."

In his Nobel Prize speech, Obama acknowledges that his position is in stark contrast to that of Martin Luther King Jr. when King was awarded the Nobel Prize. Then he jumps to the Moral Man and Immoral Society approach championed by Reinhold Niebuhr and subsequently used by conservatives and neoconservatives to justify the Cold War and the war in Vietnam: what is moral for an individual is not necessarily what is moral for a society. According to this view, a nation must be guided by self-interest and the need to defend its own citizens, not the self-interest of the whole planet (though in the twenty-first century our self-interest depends on the well-being of everyone else on the planet -- a point that Obama does not consider). So, Obama goes on, "As a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by [King and Gandhi's] example alone. I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people."

We recognize that the president of the United States has a special responsibility to defend the United States from attack. We have never been doctrinaire pacifists -- but then again, neither were King and Gandhi (both of them recognized circumstances in which they might not oppose the use of force). But we do believe that in most circumstances, the threat of force against us must be overwhelmingly clear, the danger immediate, and all other potential strategies besides war must have been exhaustively tried. None of these is the case with regard to Afghanistan.

In fact, Obama would be hard pressed to convince objective observers that there is an immediate threat to the American people that could not be resolved by ending poverty in the Middle East, from Gaza to Afghanistan. Without trying that approach, Obama is on weak ground to argue that he is applying "just war" theory.

But in Stockholm, Obama wasn't considering the strategy of generosity. The only alternative he considers is one of total nonviolence a la his caricature of King and Gandhi, and that one he dismisses by warning: "Make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A nonviolent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince al-Qaida's leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism -- it is a recognition of history: the imperfections of man and the limits of reason."

The Meaning of "Evil"

There is so much ideological baggage built into these sentences it is hard to disentangle them. First, there is the religious/metaphysical belief that "Evil" exists in the world. This is a claim that has been substantially challenged by many of us, and which I take on in The Left Hand of God. Many spiritual progressives acknowledge that evil acts have happened and that young children often inherit personalities, character structures, and ideological frameworks from people who have acted in evil ways or who have supported institutions or religious and secular practices that have embodied evil. First and foremost, they inherit a propensity to solve problems through violence.

Living in a world based on an unequal distribution of food, housing, and security -- in a world where some of the powerful media glorify violence, and where various branches of secular and religious ideologies preach a philosophy of self-interest and domination over others -- encourages us to think and act in hurtful ways. But that is very different from ontologizing Evil as an "existent reality." For a fuller discussion of this issue, please read Erich Fromm's 1973 classic The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness. From our standpoint, there is much to do to reduce evil actions and ideas that encourage evil practices and institutions that inflict hurt on others, but that is different from insisting that there is such an entity in the world as Evil. We can develop individual and social practices, institutions, and therapies to reduce evil actions or ideas or institutions, whereas Evil seems like a metaphysical category that cannot be eliminated, and hence provides the justification for a militarism that itself perpetuates and expands immoral and destructive violence and hurtfulness.

When Nonviolence Does Work

Next, there is Obama's reference to Hitler, which once again gives Hitler the victory of allowing his existence to become the reason why we must act in similar ways to his, showering violence on innocent civilians (and yes, the United States did that extensively in Iraq; and in the past year, the Obama administration has been responsible for the murder of hundreds more civilians through its use of drones to pick out "suspected" terrorists in Pakistan and Afghanistan).

And no, it is not obvious that Hitler could not have been stopped through nonviolence and generosity. That would not have worked when he was using the German army to invade neighboring countries, starting in 1938. But it was not too late in 1924, and possibly not even in 1933 or 1934. Had the victorious allies after World War I initiated a Marshall Plan for Europe and followed through with generosity and genuine caring for the well-being of everyone affected by that war, and had progressive movements in Europe been aligned with the worldviews of a Martin Buber and a Mahatma Gandhi rather than the worldviews of Stalin, Trotsky, and nationalist-oriented social democratic parties, then yes, Hitler could have been stopped through nonviolence.

The absurdity of comparing the estimated one hundred terrorists of al-Qaida in Afghanistan in 2010 (people who have almost no weapons and no access to atomic bombs) with the power of the German army when Hitler could not have been stopped by nonviolence (namely after 1938) reeks of intellectual sloppiness, if not of dishonesty. Isn't it time for us to recognize that not every threat to American power (or for that matter, to Israeli security) is Hitler?

A defender of military escalation could now argue, "Sure, they don't have Hitler's power yet, but certainly they would like to have it, and they might eventually overthrow the government of Pakistan and get their hands on nuclear weapons." Yes, they might. But so might China decide that in order to gain greater economic power it should use its atomic weapons against the United States. Or Israel might decide that to protect itself from the possibility that Iran might get and use atomic weapons it would be best for Israel to make a preemptive strike on Iran. In fact, the basic strategic argument for Israel's occupation of the West Bank and its stranglehold on Gaza is that if Palestinians ever get real power, they might use it against Israel. And in fact, that was the argument used by whites to maintain power over Blacks in South Africa.

The Torah makes clear when dealing with this issue that there needs to be an act through which this "might" starts to become an "is." It says if a person comes toward you with the intent of killing you, you have the right to kill first. But the intent is necessary but not sufficient. The person must be in the act of fulfilling his intention. The reason should be obvious: people or even the rulers of nations may have fantasies of eliminating other states, peoples, religions, or ethnic groups, but until they act to make that murder actual, their fantasies or desires are not sufficient grounds for preemptive action.

What Gives the United States the Right to Intervene?

What grounds did we have for a violent attack on the Taliban? The Taliban did not strike the United States but rather, according to the official story, it was al-Qaida. Al-Qaida was given shelter by the Taliban, who did not recognize the right of the United States to put al-Qaida leaders on trial. The United States then intervened militarily and put al-Qaida on the run by overthrowing the Taliban government. But it was not the Taliban who executed an attack on the United States.

True enough, the Taliban often engage in evil acts of violence, particularly against women seeking equality and rights. But so too does the government of China in regard to Tibetans; the government of Russia in regard to Chechnyans; the governments of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Syria in regard to their own populations; and the government of Israel in regard to Palestinians. In short, we can wish other countries had different systems or different leaders, but that is different from claiming that our wishes provide a sufficient justification for violent intervention. To take another example: the United States incarcerates between 2 million and 3 million people at any given time, thus denying freedom to more people than any other society on earth. Many of the prisoners' "crimes" turn out to be motivated by a desire to feed their families in the face of stark material deprivation. Many others are incarcerated due to the application of universal standards (like anti-drug laws) in a racist manner (giving jail time to people from communities of color while providing alternative treatment modalities to whites). How would we feel if China or some other soon-to-be-powerful country someday decides that in order to bring freedom and justice to our society, it must use its most sophisticated weapons to overthrow the repressive government of the United States and stop it from abusing human rights?

Maybe there are circumstances where that could be justified. World War II was one such. The Hutu and Tutsi massacres in Rwanda were another such moment. But we'd want to see very careful limits on such interventions. They should be a product of open democratic debate and should only occur if a majority of the people in the countries seeking to intervene are convinced of the morality of such an intervention. And military interventions should only occur after adequate and serious efforts to involve the countries of the world, and those representing a majority of the world's population should agree to such an intervention.

The United States has no right to appoint itself the policeman of the world's moral ills, particularly given our "dirty hands" with regard to past interventions. Our interventions are often motivated by economic and military-power desires that have nothing to do with the moral gloss our leaders put on these interventions. If the United States took a few years to urge other countries of the world to build an international force to protect the rights of women in Afghanistan, and if it promised to leave and let that force be the enforcers of human rights, it would have a much better case for involvement should such a force be impossible to create. But the United States has only asked the countries of the world to join under its own military ventures, and these are rightfully suspect.

President Obama has used his massive credibility with liberals to persuade a section of them to support his war. Before his speech, a majority of Americans opposed the war (please remember that in case anyone tries to tell you "Americans are intrinsically militarists"). Over 54 percent opposed the war until a supposedly progressive president made an unequivocal intellectual and policy commitment to pursuing it, and then his majority was only possible because of the many conservatives and Christian fundamentalists who have always been soft on violence against others. Now the New York Times has come around, largely on the basis of seeing how his Nobel Prize acceptance speech insisted that even while engaging the war against "a vicious adversary that abides by no rules," Obama claimed that the United States must remain "a standard-bearer in the conduct of war." This is a stretch, at best, seeing as the Obama administration has allowed "extraordinary rendition" of suspected enemy combatants, has failed to prosecute the CIA employees who allowed Blackwater thugs to murder Iraqis alongside the military, and has authorized the drones that have killed large families and civilian gatherings.

What the United States Should Do

The United States should turn to the UN and seek an international force with the mission of a) holding an honest election in which the Taliban would be invited to participate; b) protecting institutions of civil society; and c) creating safety in the major cities of Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the United States should lend support to regional negotiations and to a broader settlement of the disputes between India and Pakistan, which continue to stoke the violence in Afghanistan. Most important, the U.S. government should launch a Global Marshall Plan with its first focus on the Middle East (from Gaza through Afghanistan), including massive humanitarian aid to the desperately poor Afghan population. The ability to deliver such aid would be enhanced if it were not perceived as intermingled with military occupation by the United States.

At the core of our approach is a recognition that "the enemy" is often a projection of our own worst fantasies on others, who in turn are projecting their worst fantasies on us. American leaders, like most political leaders on the planet, seem incapable of imagining how the world looks from the perspective of the hungry, the relatively powerless, or those who have been subjected to outsiders trying to impose their regimes, economic systems, and worldviews. Obama has failed to learn the lessons of Vietnam: one cannot win a war against a population that has been fighting for many decades for its own independence. No matter what America's stated war aims, the people of Afghanistan perceive the American military presence as generating far more violence and destruction than they faced before the United States got involved. As Senator Russ Feingold put it, " I think (our presence) is increasing the extremism and increasing the resentment toward the United States."

Indeed, what Feingold predicts has already happened. According to a letter from a recent visitor to Afghanistan:

After eight years of misguided bombing raids to kill Taliban who are living in villages surrounded by civilians, we have created a new multi-headed enemy. Today the Taliban are different from the original fundamentalists who waged a war in the name of Islam. According to the director of the Peace and Reconciliation process in Kabul only about 10 percent to 15 percent of Taliban are ideologically motivated today. The rest are a combination of poor villagers angry at U.S. bombing, out of work youth, former militia, drug smugglers, plain thugs, and those from the countryside who distrust any national government, no matter whose it is.

Most of these people, observers in Kabul believe, would put down their weapons if offered money, land, jobs, and personal security.

A statement from the Campaign for Peace and Democracy that dozens of peace activists and I signed in October 2009 pointed out that U.S. actions in Afghanistan and Pakistan must be viewed in the context of a global military system much more massive and far-flung than most Americans realize. Officially, over 190,000 troops and 115,000 civilian employees are stationed in approximately 900 military facilities in forty-six countries and territories -- and the actual numbers are far greater. In the words of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, U.S. military spending of more than $600 billion a year "adds up to about what the entire rest of the world combined spends on defense."

So it is not unreasonable to notice that the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan have been part of a comprehensive effort to assert U.S. strategic power and credibility, in the Central and South Asian region and globally -- the power to control energy supplies, to overawe rivals, to intervene wherever Washington deems necessary, and to engage other countries in U.S. power projection. Since 2001, the United States has established nineteen bases in Afghanistan and neighboring countries, inserting a military presence into an area that Russia and China also seek to influence.

Women's Rights in Afghanistan

The argument that the United States must stay involved in Afghanistan to protect women from oppressive variants of Islamic fundamentalism is compelling but ultimately not persuasive: women's situation under the Karzai regime remains horrific. President Karzai signed a disgraceful law earlier this year applying to Shia women that gives a husband the right to withdraw basic maintenance from his wife, including food, if she refuses to obey his sexual demands. It grants guardianship of children exclusively to their fathers and grandfathers, and requires women to get permission from their husbands to work. If the Karzai government in Afghanistan, bolstered by the Obama war, manages to stay in power, women will continue to face massive denial of human rights, though better than the situation they would face if the Taliban win.

My comrade Arthur Waskow suggested -- partly tongue-in-cheek, but partly to encourage thinking outside the box -- that we call a conference of the independent women's organizations in Afghanistan. Organizers could offer micro-loans for grassroots economic development to any ten women who apply as a group (loans ranging from $1,000 to $5,000). And they could offer ten revolvers and 1,000 bullets to each group of women: one gun and fifty bullets for each woman for target practice, and fifty bullets for defense against anyone who comes to assail them for being uppity. If any women's group chooses not to receive the guns but to take their chances on nonviolence, their micro-loan doubles. Then the United States leaves -- generals, predators, drones, and all -- except for continuing contact with the micro-loan organizations.

A similar plan has been suggested for all of Afghanistan -- to offer massive financial aid to those Taliban who put down their guns and join a peaceful effort to stabilize the country. It would be far cheaper than the kind of open-ended commitment the Obama administration is making to Afghanistan. I would welcome an international intervention, sans NATO, with the sole aim of providing protection for the women of Afghanistan.

A Better Strategy for Homeland Security

One reason why many spiritual and religious activists celebrated the outcome of the 2008 election was the perception fostered by the Obama campaign that the new president really understood that militarism and the use of force to achieve American objectives should be relegated to the dustbin of history, at least until every nonviolent strategy has been exhaustively tried. Indeed, in his private meeting with me in 2006, Obama explicitly embraced the Tikkun/NSP perspective that a strategy of generosity would necessarily be more effective than a strategy of domination.

The Tikkun/NSP strategy was given teeth by the vice chair of the Progressive Caucus of the House of Representatives, Keith Ellison, who has worked with us to develop a Domestic and Global Marshall Plan (DGMP). Under this plan, the United States would lead the advanced industrial societies of the world in committing between 1 percent and 2 percent of its Gross Domestic Product each year for the next twenty to end global poverty, homelessness, hunger, inadequate education, and inadequate health care, and to repair the global environment. This strategy for "homeland security" would be far more effective than the futile strategy of domination against countries that might at some future time pose a threat to the United States.
Now that Obama has decided to escalate the war in Afghanistan, many of Obama's most fervent supporters -- including the many religious and spiritual progressives who believed he would turn our foreign policy away from militarism and toward creating a more caring world economic system -- are expressing dismay to each other. Spiritual progressives have long known what Obama seems not yet to have absorbed in a serious way: that the path to peace must be a path of peace, and that you cannot bomb and kill your way to security. Obama's escalation of the war in Afghanistan has left us feeling bleak and betrayed.

The "American Depressions" portrayed on the cover of this issue of Tikkun are not only about the over 10 percent of the population unable to find work. They involve a psychic and spiritual depression. Having allowed ourselves to hope that the Obama administration would unequivocally commit to a new worldview, masses of Americans who supported Obama are now filled with confusion and despair.

We spiritual progressives should not allow ourselves to succumb to this depression. We must continue to help Americans (including our political leaders) to recognize "the other" as fundamentally another part of ourselves. We are one human race. The illusions of our fundamental differences that supposedly justify us in war making must be overcome. We face a major challenge in saving our planet from the consequences of our own destructiveness. War is not the way to achieve the new consciousness that is needed to save the human race, so every possible nonviolent means must be used to avoid war before it has started, and to stop it now that it is being escalated. But as Congressman Keith Ellison points out in an interview in this issue of Tikkun, this is not a time to give in to despair. King didn't, Gandhi didn't, and we must not either.

We know full well that the military-industrial complex and the forces on Wall Street and in the media are certain to ridicule such efforts and to repress those who take them seriously. We continue to believe that deep inside Obama would like to be part of a different kind of world, but advisers have convinced him that a military path is the only "realistic one." Our task remains to provide concrete alternative ways of thinking and policy development. That's why it is so important that you come to join us at our conferences (February 15 for one day in San Francisco, and June 11-14 in Washington, D.C. For more info, visit www.tikkun.org/conference). We will continue to be a bastion of hope and a visionary advocate about how to achieve safety and security for all the people of the world and for our endangered planet.

Reconciliation of Civilizations

Collection of a few good pieces on Pluralism.

The Reconciliation of Civilizations: A Sermon for Kol Nidre
By Rabbi Brant Rosen I believe in pluralism. In the Holy Quran, God tells us, “I created you into diverse nations and tribes that you may come to know one another.” I believe America is humanity’s best opportunity to make God’s wish that we come to know one ...Shalom Rav - http://rabbibrant.com

The Saudi dialogue - Rabbi Lerner

http://wisdomofreligion.blogspot.com/2008/07/saudi-dialogue-rabbi-lerner.html

By Rabbi Michael Lerner, Editor,TIKKUN

I had expected the World Conference on Dialogue convened by the King of Saudi Arabia July 16-18 in Madrid to be little more than a photo op for the King, a cheap way to buy good public relations for a regime that has refused to increase production of oil as a way to reduce the current surge in the price, provided haven and support for the Wahabaist stream of Islam that has fostered extremists like Saudi-born and raised Osama bin Ladin and many other, and has done far too little with its wealth to alleviate the poverty and suffering of many in the Middle East. For that reason, when the Embassy called me to invite me I at first declined the invitation, and only changed my mind a few days before the event when it became clear that many establishment Jewish leaders were planning to attend, so my presence there would not be giving legitimacy that these other leaders had not already given.

Imagine my surprise, then, to hear the Saudi King not only affirm the centrality of tolerance and dialogue, but speak in a language that, as one Muslim observer pointed out to me, sounded more like the New Bottom Line of the Network of Spiritual Progressives than it did like a speech of a self-absorbed monarch. [He is certainly also that, and my praise for his actions in starting what may be a processs of Glasnost and Perestroika is the Muslim world does not mitigate against the strong ethical revulsion I have at a society that does not allow the practice of any other religion besides Islam, for decades prevented Jews from even entering the country, even when they were members of the US Armed Services, systematically subordinates and oppresses women, and beheads people for "crimes" like adultery].

King Abdullah started with a strong affirmation of the goal of a new kind of tolerance between religions. Religions have not caused wars, said the King, but rather extremists who have misused religion in a hurtful and harmful way. A truly religious person would not resort to war, the King reminded us. But why do people respond to the extremists? Because there is a deep spiritual crisis in the world, and it is that crisis which creates the conditions in which exploitation, crime, drugs, family breakdown and extremism flourish.

The King went on to explain that it should be the task of the various religious communities of the world to work together to overcome that spiritual crisis. But that will require religious cooperation which must begin with mutual respect and tolerance. We need to emphasize what all religions have in common--the ethical message that permeates every major religion. That message is that hatred can be overcome through love. We in the religious world need to choose love to overcome hatred, justice over oppression, peace over wars, universal brotherhood over racism.

To me, this didn't sound like the King I had come to expect from Western media. This was obviously a new direction being articulated by the King of Saudi Arabia. Moreover, it was not just being articulated for a Western audience. The King had convened a similar meeting of Islamic scholars and thinkers in Saudi Arabia six weeks before, and there had championed this new approach for Islam as the one most authentically rooted in traditional Islam (an argument made previously by many Western Islamists-but when they were making that argument, the Saudis seemed to be aligned with the other side, the more reactionary and anti-tolerance forces).

The King had faced some real opposition in his previous meeting, and the events there and in this meeting in Madrid represent first steps in a process that is likely to take years or decades. But this was quite a striking new direction, and one that is very hopeful. It was an historic event, the thawing down of the ice that the Saudis had helped create as they sponsored rejectionism of multiple paths in the past. Even in an authoritarian society like Saudi Arabia, the King has to deal with people who have different approaches to the world than he, particularly in the reactionary and anti-Semitic elements in the Islamic religious community, and I don't expect to see some clear line of unambiguous goodness suddenly emerging in Saudi Arabia to magically transform the whole society overnight, any more than I expect to see that in the US or Israel).

The overwhelming majority of people in the room were leaders from Muslim countries around the world. It appeared as if they were the King's primary audience. He was introducing a new language into the Islamic religious discourse, and it was a language that has in the past largely been rooted in Western humanism and human rights. Many Muslims in the room mentioned to
me or to others that they felt that this speech was actually a significant breatk-through, because the King is one of the more influential figures in Islam, because of his role as "Protector of the 2 Mosques" (in Mecca and Medina), gives him immense influence in the Islamic world.

Like the Jews, the Muslims have no pope and no authoritative body that makes all religious rulings, but instead has a plethora of religious authorities who read Islamic law in as many different ways as Jewish Hallakhic authorities read Jewish law. Protestantism in Christianity de facto created this same kind of plethora of sources of authority, so that in effect people get to choose among a variety of different Christian traditions today, just as they have had in Islam and Judaism for many many centuries. But the identification of religious leaders with state power leaders in Islamic countries has defacto created a much tighter control by the powerful elites over the religious tradition in those countries.

It remains to be seen whether the King can impose his new tolerance over a Saudi society which has not done much yet to embrace this new tolerance. But if the Saudis do in fact allow other religions to teach their ideas and practice their religions in Saudi Arabia, and if they can make other changes in law that embody a new spirit of respect for human rights, that could have a huge impact throughout the Islamic world. Moreover, even if none of this happens very soon, we should understand that in changing ideologies, statements of a new worldview are themselves acts of importance-sometimes writing or saying things (e.g. writing the Declaration of Independence or giving a speech about the failure of Stalinism or writing a book about the way that Israelis kicked Paletinian non-combatants out of their homes and into refugee caps) can be just as important an action as any other.

The Saudi King was followed by the King of Spain who talked about tolerance as an old Spanish tradition, presumably referencing the period when Christians, Jews and Muslims lied in Spain in the 11-th to the 14th centuries. He made no mention (or apology) for the Spanish expulsion of all Jews in 1492, He made a point of stressing, however, that today Spain is a democracy (presumably to acknowledge that unlike the King of the Saudis, the King of Spain no longer rules Spain in the way that the King of the Saudis actually does rule Saudi Arabia).

Next, the leader of the Muslim World League spoke about the common values held by all humanity that should be a foundation for transcending our political differences. Instead of rejoicing at the possibility of a clash of civilizations, as some right-wingers in America have preached (like Norman Podhoretz in his most recent book The 4th World War), we actually need to be seeking cooperation between the various global civilizations. Islam, he insisted, believes in the equality of all. There is no legal foundation for the prevalence of any given community or race within Islam.

Here too was an incredibly hopeful message. It wasn't relevant, really whether this is an accurate description of Muslim practice. It was, as was the King's talk, an obvious attempt to change the thinking in his own community, a change that could have profound political effects if it is taken as seriously inside Saudi Arabia as it was in Madrid.

After hearing the Kings of Saudi Arabia and Spain speak, the "religious leaders of the world" moved to a reception line in which each of us was to give our name and shake the hand of the King. I was in one of my more irrepressible moods, so when it was my time I broke protocol and said to King Abdullah "I represent the many Jews in the world who wish to see cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians and a peace that provides security and justice for both sides (and I pointed to the Tikkun pin I was wearing which has the Israeli flag and the Palestinian flag with the words "Peace, Justice, Life, TIKKUN"). I hope that you will use some of your huge oil-generated billions of dollars to help Palestinians build decent housing and plumbing in the refugee camps." By this point the people surrounding the King were moving to push me forward, and the King merely gave me a big smile (English was being translated for him by his US Ambassador) and I moved on into the dining area.

To my surprise, I was seated at a table with 8 members of the King's cabinet and his closest associates (I was the only non-Muslim or non-Saudi at the table). I sat next to the Secretary of Labor, and next to him was the Secretary of Finance, and then the others I remember included the Secretary of Communications, the Secretary of Labor, and one person who was introduced as the King's main counsel and another as a close personal friend of the King and another was one of the major corporation heads in Saudi Arabia. Several people knew about Tikkun and it turned out that these men had mostly been educated in the US or England, several at Oxford, some at the University of Southern California or at University of California. Whereas at almost all of the other tables in the huge dining room there were several conversations going on at the same time, these people stopped their separate conversations and focused on me and wanted to know my perspective on American politics and on Israel/Palestine.

I very briefly described the Tikkun/NSP perspective, particularly the need for a new consciousness based on open-heartedness, mutual repentance, and compassion, and the idea of the "New Bottom Line." I also talked about the new Global Marshall Plan as a way to do foreign policy based on the recognition that our interests as human beings in the West are directly tied to the well-being and success of everyone else on the planet, and that the smartest way to achieve Homeland Security is not through Domination and "Power ove" other, but through Generosity and Genuine Caring for Others. To start in this new direction, I argued, would take a major act of public repentance by the peoples of the world.

A few embraced this right away, and explained that their own understanding of Islam led them to feel very comfortable with what I was saying. Others argued that my thinking might be right for the U.S., but certainly couldn't apply to the Middle East, since it would be unfair to ask Palestinians to show equal repentance toward Israelis, given that the Palestinians had been made homeless by the 1947-49 conflict and were living in terrible conditions.

I agreed with them that the suffering of the Palestinians was impossible to accept as legitimate, and certainly ran counter to the dictates of Judaism with its commands to care for "the other" (ve'ahavta la'ger-You must love the stranger). But then I added that it was a shame that the Saudis with all their wealth had not done more to help the Palestinians. The Finance Minister smiled and said that that was simply not true, but that Israel was not letting their aid come through. He is certainly right about the intransigence and human-rights-violating policies of the Israeli government as it attempts to punish the entire Palestinian population for the activities of a few (an explicit violation of international law). However, I pointed out that Palestinian refugees lived in Jordan, Syria, Egypt and particularly in Lebanon where their conditions were appalling and that the Saudis could rectify that.

The Finance Minister responded by saying that they had done more than was known, but that the particulars he was not going to discuss. I then pointed out that Gaza and the West Bank were in the hands of the Arabs from 1948-1967 and that their Arab hosts and the Saudis had done
nothing to improve their slum-like conditions. Several people pointed out to me that the Palestinian leadership that existed at that time (1949-1967) prior to the emergence of the Palestinian Liberation Organization) did not want to accept that the expulsion from their homes was permanent, and hence did not want to begin any housing construction project that would appear to be a resettling in the refugee camps.

Didn't I agree that the refugees had suffered a huge humanitarian disaster? Yes, I said I did agree with that, but that Israelis were fearful that if Palestinians were to return now with their millions of people, that would eliminate Israel as a Jewish state. And I referenced my article on Israel at 60 in May/June 2008 Tikkun in which I had analyzed the situation in terms of the Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome facing both Jews from our long history of oppression culminating in the Holocaust and the Palestinian people as a result of their displacement for the past sixty years.

My even-handedness was challenged by some who said that certainly the suffering of the Palestinian people couldn't be excused by reference to the suffering of Jews in Europe, since it was not the Palestinians who had participated in the Holocaust? I replied that the Palestinians had played an important role, along with the Saudis and other Arab states in convincing the British to cut off immigration of Jews to Palestine. They responded that this policy was understandable, given the explicitly stated goal of the Zionist movement leaders to create a Jewish state in Palestine, and thus, Palestinians feared, to exclude or evict Palestinian settlers (and as several pointed out, Israeli historians like Beni Morris, Avi Shlaim, and Ilan Pappe uncovered documents and letters from Zionist leaders revealing that their intent in accepting the UN resolution of 1947 to partition Palestine was only a first step in their larger intent to eventually take over all of Palestine-and that goal was clear to the Arabs as well as to the Zionist movement and accounted for their resistance to the partition agreement). I pointed out that whatever their fears, the reality was that they had chosen an immoral path in pushing the British to close immigration to Jews, and that a majority of my larger family had died in Europe during the Holocaust and might have been saved had there been a place to escape to, and that Palestine was the nearest place in which Jews had some historical claim.

At this point the Saudis challenged my contention that the Palestinians or Arabs had had much of an impact on the British in their decisions. I argued that the British in the 30s and 40s were following policies shaped by their concern for steady oil supplies for their coming war (either with Hitler or Stalin). The Saudis
responded by telling me that they (the Saudis) were not a major source of oil for the British and that in any event the British were a colonial power that was shaping the policies of other Arab states, and not vice versa. I was not sure that that was true, but then switched my line to point out that wherever colonial
authorities ruled, they always tried to set the native populations against their minority groups, and that this is what had happened in Palestine and more generally in the Middle East. The Jews, I argued, were the minority in Palestine at that time, and the potential Arab revolt against colonialism had been weakened by the distraction onto opposing Zionism.

But was it a distraction or were the Zionists really agents of colonial rule? The Saudis pointed to the Balfour Declaration in 1917 proclaiming Britain's commitment to supporting the Jews in establishing a state in Palestine. I argued that the British had no right to determine the future of the area, since it wasn't
theirs in the first place (a point that showed the Saudis that there were indeed Jews who did not identify with the colonialist perspective) and b. that most Jews coming to Palestine were fleeing oppression, most form Europe but some from Arab countries.

They responded that Jews had lived in harmony with their Arab hosts until the colonial period and the rise of Zionism. At that point, rather than pursue that argument (I disagreed with them and would have pointed out that the conditions were akin to apartheid for Jews in most of those countries through much of that history), I turned instead to the larger frame of our discussion and said, "Wouldn't it be better if we really wish to build a future of peace that we stop trying to get a triumph on the issue of guilt? There are two national discourses here, and each has lots of facts to back it up, but it is futile and destructive to follow the path now being followed in which each side tells the story as though
they are the righteous victims and the other side is the evil oppressors! Let’s move beyond that to ask what we can do to build peace now, and start by each side acknowledging that the other has a legitimate though partial view, and that each side has sinned and gone off course." I then explained the Jewish view of "sin" as similar to an arrow going off course, implying that the sinner was fundamentally good, not evil, but had lost his or her way. They seemed happy with that notion.

But then they turned to the current situation and told me how surprised and outraged they were that the Saudi proposal to end the struggle and create peace based on a return to the 1967 borders, a proposal offered to Israel several years ago, had gotten zero response from Israel. I responded that if they really thought that there would be a full return to those borders, they were mistaken, because no Jew would ever agree to give up access to the Western Wall which was part of Jordan before the 67 war (and while under Arab rule, Jews had been prevented from going to the Wall to pray). They thought that could be negotiated, but the point, they said, was that they had gotten exactly ZERO RESPONSE to a gesture which they felt should have been perceived by Israel as giving Israel the recognition that Israel always claimed to be central to its needs.

I could not justify the Israeli government's behavior, but said that I opposed the current and past Israeli governments since the death of Rabin precisely because they had given up on peace and seemed more interested in holding on to the West Bank. But, I argued, most American Jews and a large number of Israelis would accept major territorial compromises if they really believed that peace was possible.

The Saudis said that it seemed impossible to believe that when the Saudis had made it clear that peace was indeed possible. I responded by pointing to thePTSD thesis coupled with the continuing fear of Israelis that they might be wiped out by a combination of the Iranians plus the surrounding Arab states. Incredulously, they asked if any Jews in the US seriously believed that destruction of Israel was possible. I responded that such fears were frequently voiced in the organized Jewish community, though many younger Jews did not share that fear. At this point, the Saudis were so astounded they almost lost interest in the conversation.

They found it impossible to believe that anyone could believe that Israel was in any danger of destruction. Israel, they pointed out to me, had close to two hundred nuclear bombs-no state would dare seek to destroy Israel for fear of being wiped off the face of the earth. Similarly, they perceived Iranian threats from Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to be a joke, since everyone knew that Iran did not have any nuclear capacity whatsoever and was unlikely to have anything in the next decade.

Many of the Saudis at the table felt that at this point they were listening to a typical Israeli propagandist (me) and that there was no point in continuing to talk since they believed that I knew and all Israelis and Jews knew that there was no possibility of Israel ever getting destroyed by the weak Arab or Islamic world, and that taking such concerns seriously were about as rational as thinking that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

In any event, they asked what I thought they should do-was there anyone among Israelis leaders who had the power and inclination to build peace. When I talked about Yossi Beilin they said I had misunderstood-they wanted to know about anyone who was likely to actually have the power to implement a peace agreement, and I was not sure who to suggest. Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni does not seem to me to have the kind of commitment to peace that would be necessary to gain the support of the current cabinet for a path to peace that involved serious land compromises, and Bibi Netanyahu, who may be Israel's next Prime Minister, has zero inclination toward a negotiated settlement with the Palestinian people.

The Saudis then asked me about Obama and particularly his seeming capitulation to AIPAC immediately after securing the Democratic nomination. I told them about the divisions in the Jewish world, the way that the peace forces represented a majority of American Jews were largely without the finances or access to media to make their presence known, and that the pro-AIPAC dems would likely make it difficult for Obama to provide strong leadership on Israel/Palestine unless there emerged a powerful grassroots force in the Jewish world and in the Christian world that would push in a different direction. Many of them asked if that was not in part the role of the Network of Spiritual Progressives, and I affirmed that but pointed out major problems we faced: a. lack of finances b. media power of the Jewish right and the willingness of the
liberals in the media to assume that AIPAC and the Jewish establishment spoke for most if not all American Jews. c. turf battles that made groups like Brit Tzedeck unwilling to cosponsor Washington lobbying with NSP and Jewish Voices for Peace or any groups that were interfaith, the unwillingness of Christians forMiddle East Peace to align in their lobbying with Jewish groups,
the unwillingness of Jim Wallis' Sojo group to work with the Network of Spiritual Progressives on Israel/Palestine issues, the fear that J Street people seemed to have about getting involved with any group that might appear too critical of Israel or even too explicitly critical of AIPAC, and the contrast with the Jewish right which had been willing to all work together to support AIPAC for the sake of maximizing their political power.

I also discussed the lack of political coherence of the Christian Left and their inability to join in any effective public political action with other groups with whom they disagreed theologically (so, for example, it was rare to see progressive Catholics joining with progressive Protestants on Middle east issues, or even on issues like the Global Marshall Plan because they didn't want to align with groups that had a different stand than they on abortion or gay rights), much less with Jewish groups, except in the narrow frame of specific legislative issues on Capitol Hill (but not in challenging the dominant political ideas that shaped American thought on the Middle East and made Obama reluctant to challenge the willingness of the American government to follow the lead of whoever happened to be in power in Israel). But I also told them that all this could change. I pointed out that Obama had been intellectually close to Tikkun for many years, that his ideas on many issues closely aligned with the Tikkun perspective, and that he had signaled 8 years ago to our Chicago chapter of the Tikkun community that he was very sympathetic to our position on reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians.

Still, I pointed out, in some respects the Clintons had been aligned with Tikkun before they took office, but our failure to mobilize enough public pressure on them had made it possible for AIPAC insiders in the White House and the Democratic Party to push them far from me or Tikkun's perspectives, and the same danger existed for Obama unless the progressive forces in all the religious and secular communities could organize a serious and systematic alternative in
every Congressional district.

But how could that help, the Saudis wanted to know. What could change the discourse in America or Israel in the way that I had suggested, a way that would recognize the humanity and fundamental decency of most Muslims, most Arabs and most Palestinians

To answer that I presented the Global Marshall Plan. Many were very positive about it, but insisted that the initiative would have to come from the United States in the first instance. If that happened, they felt sure that Saudi Arabia and many others would join such an effort. They hoped that the Global Marshall Plan would gain traction, and they fully embraced the view that security would come through generosity more than through military domination.

That was my discussion with the Saudis. I consciously held myself back on several fronts. I felt it pointless to argue with them about the deficiencies of this conference-the fact that though it was centered on the notion of "dialogue" that in fact the sessions were a series of presentations in which there was zero opportunity for dialogue with others in the room. I several times tried to raise the issue of the de facto exclusion of women from the dialogue, though there were some women in attendance, but I got zero response or understanding on that. I got nowhere in pointing out the contradiction of holding an interfaith dialogue in Spain at a time when the Saudis themselves prohibit the practice of any other faith but Islam inside Saudi Arabia. Many of these sessions seemed empty to me precisely because they were mere preaching about tolerance and dialogue, though the reality in Saudi Arabia provides so little dialogue or tolerance of other religions.

And yet, I realized that that point, though righteous, somehow missed the significance of this gathering, which was in fact more about advancing the idea of tolerance, peace, non-violence, mutual understanding and dialogue in the Islamic world and in particularin the religious community in the Islamic world.

The Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, and others who were in attendance here were props for this discussion, but what the King of Saudi Arabia was doing was nevertheless of historic significance. In a previous meeting in Mecca with Islamic religious leaders, he faced considerable opposition to his proposal for an interfaith conference around dialogue and mutual understanding. He had used his power and authority as the Guardian of the Sacred Mosques of Mecca and Medina to override opposition and go forward with this conference. Precisely because Saudi forms of Islam are perceived as the most conservative, taking this step is certain to reverberate for decades through the Islamic world and to be an historical marker in the process of modernization in Islam. For Islam, this gathering and the one before it in Saudi Arabia were roughly equivalent in significance to that of Gorbachev announcing the beginning of a new openness and tolerance toward the West that was the first step toward the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

And there is also another dimension. The Saudis are implicitly taking religious leadership in the struggle with a reactionary version of Islam that has emerged in Iran. Though Iran was never mentioned, this gathering, plus the actions of the Prince of Jordan in calling for an Islam that works in cooperation with the
Western world and with other religious communities, renouncing the "conflict of civilizations," appears to be a major challenge to the growing appeal of Iranian forms of Islam among young Muslims who are filled with righteous indignation against the West in light of the devastation brought to Iraq by the US and the UK.

Finally, a word about the media. As I listened to the Saudis at my table I realized once again what I've known for four decades-how completely the media misrepresents who the people are with whom the powerful in the US are at odds. I have long known that about the Jewish media as well-I'm portrayed often as an enemy of Israel or a self-hating Jew! And ever since the Clintons embraced my
"Politics of Meaning," the American media has represented me as a New Age thinker rather than as someone deeply rooted in Judaism, psychology, philosophy and still learning from all the other religious and spiritual traditions of the human race through its history. Still, with all that, I was amazed to find myself amazed at the humanity, intelligence, and shared commitment to rationality among all these leaders of the Saudi regime.

NO, I'm not giving up my skepticism, and no, I have not forgotten the barbarism of some Saudi legal practices, the strong misogyny of their culture, and the profound anti-Semitism that exists in their society. No, I was not holding some racist view-the Saudi system is actually extremely oppressive, its legal system extremely intolerant and imposing of a particularly reactionary version of Islam that goes with beheading some people for being But what I was discovering at lunch is that there is a modernizing Saudi elite that sees those reactionary aspects of their own society as problematic, and hopes to change that (indicated to me in many comments made during the two hours we sat together and which I've only partially summarized here).

I am not an advocate for the Saudi regime, but I now see that there are elements in it with a true and deep humanity. I see the fundamental decency of some who are engaged in an effort to "reform from within," and am reminded once again of how ridiculous it is to talk about a whole society as though it represented a single perspective or shared a single worldview. I also see now the need to work with the most progressive elements, and the need to avoid "Othering the Other."

Another point about the media: this conference is a front page story in most of the world, but is being largely ignored in the US media who were notably absent from the hundreds of media covering this event. This is a willed ignorance about the world fostered by the US media establishment.

What was also clear to me in this conversation was that these very enlightened Saudis had NEVER met or been in a conversation with Jews who held progressive values and took those value seriously. For them, it was an exciting revelation that there were Jews who were both pro-Israel and pro-Palestine, who could hold both narratives as having elements of truth and elements of goodness, just as it was exciting to them to learn about the interfaith Network of Spiritual Progressives. They too had fallen for the media distortions and for believing that the American elites with whom they have had contact represent the democratic will of the American people, so they were happy to be disabused of that notion.

I came away from this direct time with the Saudis with the distinct impression that I had helped foster more positive notions about who Americans are, who Jews are, and what Israelis are about. I believe that this happened in many other conversations that took place in the hallways between the 20 or so Jews at the conference and the hundreds of Muslims and Christians. While some of those Jews probably conveyed the same stuckness and stubbornness that Israel and the American Jewish establishment always conveys, there were fresh thinkers like Rabbi Michael Paley, Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, Rabbi Phyllis Berman, Rabbi Arthur Waskow, Rabbi Marc Gopin, Rabbi Scott Sperling and Rabbi David Rosen who each have creative and exciting ideas on how to continue this dialogue. For that, as for many other aspects of this set of conversations, I give thanks to God for the opportunity that I have had to serve the causes of peace and reconciliation!

Returning to the rest of the conference would be a downer in comparison with this conversation, but I soon realized that that too was a premature judgment. I felt richly rewarded by the opportunities to meet and chat with many other Muslims, and to realize how safe the place felt for us Jews even though we were a
tiny minority in a hall filled with Muslims. But the actual formal presentations also raised some important issues and even a rather encouraging vision of the future, which I'll translate somewhat into my frame.

I mentioned above that this conference is a significant step in the process of modernization in the Islamic world. But of course, modernization in the West has been deeply linked to a process of "de-mystification of the world" that we at Tikkun call "scientism," the triumph of the worldview that the only things that count are those that can be measured or empirically verified, and that everything else is literally "non-sense."

The result is the empty public square, a public life devoid of values. And as I've showed in our empirical research at the Institute for Labor and Mental Health, and explained more fully in my The Politics of Meaning and in my Spirit Matters and The Left Hand of God, this has created a spiritual crisis of monumental
importance that is at the root of family breakdown, drug and alcohol abuse, narcissism and alienation, loneliness and a sense of the meaninglessness of one's life that has grown to monumental proportions.

While the poverty in the under-developed world is itself a major source of pain, one of the aspects of the West that is most resented and feared is the power of Western culture to uproot traditional cultures to replace them with the values of the marketplace and the demystification and scientism that is central
to capitalist enterprise.

Watching the spiritual suffering and degradation that in the West is taken for granted and rarely connected with the values generated by a society that measures "success" primarily in material terms and encourages a world view of "looking out for number one" and "me-firstism" and "values out of our professions and out of our work world and only have a place on a weekend religious moment but not in dailylife," people in the Muslim world are particularly concerned about this aspect of Western imperialism and are committed to fighting it.

So what was said by some of the speakers was that the kind of modernization that should be welcomed into Islam, and the kind of tolerance that should be an important element of Islamic culture, should not include a tolerance for those kinds of values that shape the culture of capitalist imperialism and are reflected in the pop culture it has fostered. Instead, they envision a modernization that is respectful, inclusive, and based on affirming the value of spiritual and religious diversity, but that does not accept the secularism and the scientism of the modern
world that parades under the name of Western "rationality" and "progress."

That, of course, is a vision closely aligned with ours. We do not at Tikkun or in the Network of Spiritual Progressives (NSP) affirm any particular religious tradition, nor do we believe that one must be religious or part of some religious tradition in order to be part of the NSP or in order to deserve our respect or connection.

But we do affirm that there is something in the spiritual worldview, even the "spiritual but NOT religious" worldview that is an essential part of a fulfilled life. While that spiritual element may manifest as play, art, music, dance, or even study of the wonders of the universe as experienced through the study of science, it is an irreducible element that cannot be accessed solely by scientism (though it could be by scientific investigation). To be spiritual in our sense is to recognize that there are aspects of reality that are real and knowable, but cannot be know through measurement or empirical verification.

What the advanced-consciousness-Muslims whose wisdom was in full flower at this conference seem to be promising us is that the coming spiritual renaissance of Islam may provide a foundation for precisely this kind of tolerant, loving, and
generous form of religion that becomes a beacon for future generation. This kind of Islam will speak to people who may be experiencing the crisis of spiritual emptiness of the contemporary world but are not willing to embrace fundamentalisms of any sort or give space to worldviews that do not include tolerance, mutual respect for others, and a true spirit of generosity. This is precisely the kind of renewal that many of us in the NSP are seeking to build in the Christian and Jewish worlds today.

It may be hard for many of us to imagine a world in which Islam becomes identified with these values of love, generosity, kindness, tolerance, social justice and peace. Such a development for Islam, or for that matter for Judaism and Chrisitianity, would certainly be an incredibly wonderful development. For those of us who despair about Christianity or Judaism having gone astray from the loving elements in their founders' visions that these religions now embody, in at least part of their practice, exactly the opposite values from those that made these religions catch fire in the hearts of their adherents (that may be what it means to see the Burning Bush), the notion that Islam might be the spark that generates a new religious revival based on mutual respect and spiritual intensity could dramatically expand our understanding of the endless potential for God to surprise us, un-do our conceptual certainties, and open our hearts to each other.

Well, I won't hold my breath for that in Islam or any other religion. As moved as I was by this conference, I believe that the historically significant process that the King of Saudi Arabia helped advance in Madrid will take decades to fully mature in the actual reality of daily life in Saudi Arabia. In fact, I expect that we are more likely to see progressive visions from Islam emerge from the diaspora communities of Muslims in the U.S. (see the work of the Zaytuna Institute in the SF Bay Area), Canada, England, and France, and from Jordan, Egypt, Turkey and Palestine. But none of these will have as much lasting impact as the transformation, however difficult and long it may take, that was set on path by this process initiated by King Abdullah. Similarly, those of us who are seeking to build a renewal in Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism have our work cut out for us, and overcoming the out-of-balance energy toward repression, distrust, fear of the other, and commitment to "domination as the path to security" (the legacy of what I call "the Right Hand of God") will be a task that will not be completed in my lifetime, not even in Western religions. But I think it is very important to acknowledge victories and steps forward, and I believe that we are seeing now a major step toward strengthening the Renewal forces in Islam, and I am grateful to have been part of that experience.

I also came away with a hopeful attitude about what is possible in the way of Middle East peace once the Israeli people come to the place of being willing to give up the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan, and to the consciousness of recognizing that their security will come more from a spirit of generosity and caring for others than through domination and occupation. But that, too, is not around the corner. All the more reason why we at Tikkun and the Network of Spiritual Progressives have to be willing to remain true to our faith that love and generosity will eventually triumph in the hearts and minds of all people on the planet, and that our task is to do what we can to accelerate that process so as to relieve the suffering that is happening as long as the old paradigm of fear and domination continue to shape the policies of states around the world.

Rabbi Michael Lerner, July 18, 2008 Madrid, Spain

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Rabbi Michael Lerner is editor of Tikkun magazine www.tikkun.org,
chair of the Network of Spiritual Progressive www.spiritualprogressives.org, and author of 11 books (including The Politics of Meaning, Healing Israel/Palestine, and The Left Hand of God, the latter a national best seller in 2006). He is rabbi of Beyt Tikkun synagogue in SF, conducts Friday evening services in SF, and teaches Torah on Shabbat mornings in Berkeley (see www.beyttikkun.org for schedule) and High Holiday services in
S.F. You don't have to be Jewish to register for the High Holiday services, which are among the most creative and unique traditional services you'll ever experience.

RabbiLerner@Tikkun.org
510 644 1200