Apparently the good folks at the Wesley Acres Methodist Retirement Home in Decatur, Alabama decided that they didn’t like the way their facility looked from above. (Can you guess why?)
According to a news report:
Wesley Acres provides housing for 117 low income pensioners over the age of 62 – most of whom have no idea the hallways they walk each day form a sinister shape.
I guess some things tend to look better from up close.
Click here to read the story…
Posted in Current Events, Holocaust
Man should strive to have his intestines relaxed all the days of his life.
–Moses Maimonidies
Be forewarned: this post is about poo.
Why, you ask, is a rabbi writing about…uh… bowel movements? Well, because as the Rambam himself reminds us above, having a successful BM is nothing less than holy work. If you think I’m joking, you should know that one of the best known daily blessings in Jewish tradition is the one we say before we do our business every morning:
You abound in blessings, Eternal One our God, Soverign of all Creation, who with wisdom created the human being with wisdom, making for us all of the openings and vessels of the body. It is clearly apparent that if one of these passage-ways be open when it should be closed, or blocked up when it should be free, it would be impossible to exist or stand before your Presence. You abound in blessings, the wondrous healer of all flesh.
It may well be that we are waking up to the joys of regularity – and in particular the importance of examining what we leave behind. The whimsical medical guide, “What’s Your Poo Telling You?” has now sold 250,000 copies world-wide – and even the Oprah Winfrey show has devoted air time to the the health importance of toilet bowl gazing. Could it be that that poo-observation is becoming (pardon the expression) something of a movement?
If I haven’t completely nauseated you by now, click above for a musical tutorial or check out this recent article from Salon. Here’s an exerpt:
Going to the john is no longer simply a process of elimination. No, the “unbridled elation that results from releasing the perfect poo” is now a transformative act, bringing the conscientious fiber-eating toilet sitter to a spiritual or sexual high.
(Hmmm, maybe Maimonidies was onto something after all…)
Posted in Food, Health Care, Judaism, Religion, Spirituality
Interested in knowing more about the business practices of the products you consume? I recently came across Better World Shopper – a great website that grades more than 1.000 of the world’s largest companies’ products based on their adherence to five major categories: Human Rights, the Environment, Animal Protection, Community Involvement, and Social Justice.
Better World Shopper describes it’s mission this way:
The average American family spends around $18,000 each year on goods and services. Think of it as casting 18,000 votes every year for the kind of world you want to live in. Use this site to take back your power.
Their data might not surprise you, but I was very impressed by the thoroughness of their research and the ease with which you can call up results. For the record, here is their Ten Best/Ten Worst List:
The Ten Best Companies:
Seventh Generation, Patagonia, American Apparel, Eden Foods, Tom’s of Maine, Ben and Jerry’s, Working Assets, Clif Bar, Stonyfield Farms, Aveda
The Ten Worst Companies:
Exxon Mobil, Altria (Philip Morris), Wal-Mart, Chevron Texaco, Pfizer, Nestle, Tyson Foods, General Electric, Archer Daniels Midland, General Motors
Posted in Environmentalism, Global Activism, Human Rights, Tzedakah
For over the Tabernacle a cloud of the Lord rested by day, and fire would appear in it by night, in the view of all the house of Israel throughout their journeys. (Exodus 40:38)
As the book of Exodus comes to a close, the Israelites have ended their sojourn at Mt. Sinai and are preparing to commence their wanderings in the wilderness. The mountain, of course, represents revelation – the place in which they encounter God and openly receive divine instruction. But, of course, they cannot remain at Sinai indefinitely. Sooner or later, the time must come for the Israelites to leave the mountain and venture into the wilderness.
This is where the Tabernacle becomes literally and figuratively central to the communal life of the Israelites. It is not by happenstance that the Tabernacle is marked by a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night. These are, after all, the very same images that are used in the description of the theophany at Sinai:
Now Mount Sinai was all in smoke, for the Lord had come down upon it in fire; the smoke rose like the smoke of a kiln… (Exodus 19:18)
In a sense the Tabernacle represents a kind of “mini-Sinai” – a portable place of revelation that will orient the Israelite community during the course of their journeys through the wilderness. The Tabernacle will allow divine revelation to be ongoing no matter where their steps may lead them. As long as the Israelites have the cloud and fire to accompany them, their steps will be be guided with spiritual purpose and direction.
Some of the final questions posed by the book of Exodus: when were your Sinai moments? When was your time to leave the mountain? What are your pillars of cloud and fire?
Posted in Judaism, Religion, Spirituality, Torah Commentary
I recently read an incredibly thought-provoking Sun Magazine interview with activist Van Jones (right), board President and co-founder of The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. Among other things, Jones has become something of a pioneer in connecting two issues that are typically viewed as separate: socio-economic inequality and environmental destruction.
In the interview, he soberly described the current environmental movement in our country as a kind of “eco-apartheid:”
“Eco-apartheid” is a situation in which you have ecological haves and have-nots. In other words, if you are in the San Francisco Bay Area, and you visit Marin County, you’ll find hybrid vehicles, solar panels, organic food, organic everything. If you then get in your car and drive twenty minutes, you’ll be in west Oakland, where people are literally choking on the fumes of the last century’s pollution-based technologies. That’s eco-apartheid, and it’s morally wrong, because we should deliver clean jobs and health benefits not just to the wealthy, but also to the people who need them most. Eco-apartheid doesn’t work on a practical level either, because you can’t have a sustainable economy when only 20 percent of the people can afford to pay for hybrids, solar panels, and organic cuisine, while the other 80 percent are still driving pollution-based vehicles to the same pollution-based jobs and struggling to make purchases at Wal-Mart.
For the sustainable economy to be successful, it has to be a full-participation economy. Right now it is a niche economy, a lifestyle economy. Though green products are a $230 billion industry and growing, that’s still a slice of a slice of a slice of the overall pie. It is easy for the eco-elites in Massachusetts or northern California to wrap themselves in the trappings of sustainability and think that the problem has been solved, but the people who clean their houses are going back to neighborhoods that may be fifty years in the past in terms of their ecological sustainability. As we move toward a sustainable economy, if we do not take care to minimize the pain and maximize the gain for the poor, they will join forces with the polluters to derail the green revolution.
Jones also addressed insightfully how and why this “eco-elitism” has failed to reach the hearts and minds of low-income people and people of color:
Environmentalists sometimes don’t understand that what motivated them to get involved in political activism and change their lifestyle isn’t going to inspire everyone else. It’s not just a matter of their explaining louder and louder why everyone should be like them. That’s not the politics of inclusion; that’s the politics of elitism. The reality is that working people will support ecological solutions, but not for the same reasons that the eco-elites support them.
A lot of wealthy, educated people wanted to take action as a result of Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth, but most low-income people and people of color I know had no interest in seeing the movie in the first place. They already have enough problems. They don’t need new crises to worry about. Around here we say that the people who already have a lot of opportunities are the ones who need to hear about the crises. So if you have a house and a car and a college degree, then, yes, you should hear about global warming, or peak oil, or dying species. But poor and low-income people need to hear about opportunities. They need to hear about the expected reduction in asthma rates when we reduce greenhouse gases. They need to hear about the wealth and health benefits of moving to a sustainable economy. Otherwise you are just telling people who are already having a bad day that they should have a worse one.
How can we bridge this gap? Jones offered several thoughts, including the creation of a “green collar” job corps – a mobilization that would train low income youth of color to help retrofit US cities to become more environmentally sustainable.
A provocative and compelling article: click here to read the entire interview.
Posted in Energy Policy, Environmentalism, Hurricane Katrina, Poverty
The tragic escalation of violence between Israel and Gaza has left over one hundred dead in its wake and has dealt a serious blow to current prospects for peace, but amidst this increasingly dismal news here’s one tiny gesture of hope: an online conversation between an Israeli blogger from Sderot and a Palestinian blogger from Gaza.
Apparently this project was born out of a dialogue group of Palestinian Gazans and Israeli residents of Sderot. According to Danny Gal, one of the dialogue’s organizers, the group fell apart when the Palestinian participants were no longer allowed to leave Gaza. So the dialogue continued online.
The shared blog is written by “Peace Man” (the Gazan) and “Hope Man” (from Sderot). Though their specific identities are kept anonymous, Gal says Peace Man is a man in his 30s who lives in the Sajaia refugee camp and worked as a teacher until they closed his school. Hope Man is an Israeli in his 40s who lives in Sderot and owns his own high-tech business. Most of the posts describe vividly the everyday life under fire in the two communities. More recently, the two bloggers unveiled a petition calling on their respective governments to institute a one month cease fire:
We, citizens of Gaza, Sderot and people all over the world desperately call on you, our leaders and decision makers, to completely cease fire immediately. Both sides are in a dead lock and One Month will give all parties an opportunity to rethink their policy and to find new paths out of this senseless and hopeless reality.
In the face of such an overwhelming and intractable conflict, it is easy to be cynical about a modest effort such as this, still, we must seek hope wherever it leads us – and I am personally heartened by the spirit of peace and coexistence it conveys. Click here for a Ha’aretz feature on the history of the project. To read the English language version of the blog, click here.
Posted in Coexistence, Israel, Palestine, Peace
This just in: there will be no Tam Tams on your table this Pesach.
You heard me right. Manichewitz recently announced that due to unforeseen delays at their “brand-new, state-of-the-art, computer-controlled” Newark plant, the company has been forced to cut back on several of their matzah products and will not be producing any Tam Tams at all this year. What’s next, a run on sugary fruit slices?
An article in the New Jersey Jewish News has the whole sad story. (Among other things, it features the horrified response of Andrew Halper, owner of Zayda’s Kosher Deli in South Orange.)
From My Other Blog:
The Trauma of Remembrance
Tonight we begin Shabbat Zachor (“The Shabbat of Rembrance”) – the term for the Shabbat that falls immediately before the festival of Purim. This day is so called in reference to the commandment to remember the Amalekites, the infamous arch-enemies of Israel who were known for attacking the weakest and most vulnerable members of the community. According to the Torah, “The LORD will be at war with Amalek throughout the ages” (Exodus 17:16) – indeed, Haman himself is identified in the Book of Esther as a descendant of King Agag, the notorious Amalekite king mentioned in this week’s Haftarah portion.
What does Shabbat Zachor ask us to remember? Is is simply to always remember that no matter how good we may have it, there are enemies out there in the world conspiring to kill us? In this regard I’m especially interested in the commandment from Deuteronomy above – to never “forget” to “blot out the memory” of Amalek. While this imperative might at first seem confusing or contradictory, it might well offer us a profound insight into the spiritual effects of remembrance – particularly in the wake of trauma.
Trauma experts have long pointed out that one of the central symptoms of PTSD is the persistent reliving of past traumas. Trauma therapy is thus directed toward effecting the reduction of the crippling impact of these memories – to eventually “blot them out” as it were. The same might be said for the collective experience of trauma. Perhaps the verse above is not commanding us to forget or become complecent about our enemies so much as it is instructing us to eradicate the aspects of our traumatic past that serve to keep us enslaved or imprisoned.
Given the abundant traumatic memories of our post 9/11 world, the imperative of Shabbat Zachor speaks to us with a powerful urgency indeed.
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Posted in Anti-Semitism, Fear, Judaism, Purim, Religion, Terrorism, Torah Commentary