Posts tagged current events
This is My God (Pride Shabbat)
This is My God (Pride Shabbat)

Though LGTBQ Pride month is celebrated these days with a popular parade supported by corporate sponsors, it wasn’t always this way: the reason we celebrate in June is to commemorate the 1969 Stonewall Uprising, a spontaneous act of resistance, at a time same-sex relationships were punished as crimes. This uprising became known as the major turning point in the Gay Liberation Movement. Judaism and other religions, too, were countercultural in their founding: they arose as spontaneous acts of resistance to challenge an oppressive status quo, and offer a prophetic vision of a just and liberated future.

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Adam Lavittpride, LGBTQ, liberation, current events, identity, history, homophobia
Choosing Life in a Pandemic (Erev Rosh Hashanah)
Choosing Life in a Pandemic (Erev Rosh Hashanah)

Over the past many months, many of us have understandably become numb in the face of overwhelming cruelty, injustice, and death we have faced personally…. As we armored our hearts against the horror of the past year, we may have found we became less able to fully receive positive experiences: the love of friends and family, the taste of good food, the beauty of the natural world around us. Rosh Hashanah, yom harat haolam is not a time to judge ourselves for this: rather, it’s an invitation to wake up to how we are choosing to live. It’s an opportunity to return, to start over, to renew ourselves; to use our awareness of life’s fragility to live with a bit more intention, to open our hearts once more so they can respond to the challenges we face, and fully receive its joys — so we can live and feel more fully.

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Adam LavittRosh Hashanah, renewal, current events
Closed Wells, Closed Hearts

The Targum, a 1st century translation renders “closed up” into the Aramaic tmunim. Being driven by self-interest, “chokes up (matametem) the heart.” As we sort ourselves into ideological camps, “us” and “them”, we close our hearts to each other. We lose access to our collective purpose and vision. As we fall for this “us” versus “them” narrative, we shut down spaces essential to a vibrant democracy, beginning with our hearts.

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Adam Lavittcurrent events, democracy, Isaac
Hope in the Margins

Our certainty that things cannot change offers us psychological protection by forcing us to abandon our expectations. But it also obscures the reality that change is a property intrinsic to everything that exists—our bodies, our relationships, even our social and political institutions. Opposed to our surety, hope locates itself in the premises that we do not know what will happen, and that in the spaciousness of that uncertainty is room to act. Torah invites us to imagine all that is still unknown sitting in the twilight, waiting to be thrust into history in order to embrace an alternative to the certainty of both optimists and pessimists—which excuses both groups from acting.

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Adam Lavitthope, Shabbat, current events
Joyful “Seeing”

A few weeks ago, the largest glacier everbroke off the Antarctic ice shelf. As global temperatures soar and shorelines shrink at an accelerated rate, we become more aware of ways in which our resources are limited. This is compounded by our reactions to these realities. We fear the instability we are witnessing around the world and feel compelled to hold onto whatever resources might help us maintain our sense of safety, however illusory, for a little bit longer.

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Adam Lavitthope, current events, mindfulness, gratitude, joy