Simple Bob stumbled along the broken sidewalk hoping to find a job, any kind of job, in the rusty industrial area. He had lived in a car for a while, his wife and children with him, until he had to sell the car to buy food and then had to leave his family because they couldn’t get government assistance as long as he was with them.

Before him he spied a bill. He quickly looked to see if anyone watched and then hurried to the bill. It was a hundred dollar bill. When he reached to pick it up he saw that it was in a pile of dog excrement.

"Pick it up," someone said and Simple Bob saw Satan leaning against a huge hamburger with a slice of pie beside it.

"It’s dirty," Simple Bob said. "It has dog poop on it."

"It’s not dog poop, it’s candy," said Satan changing his position against the billboard. "It’s melted a little. Pick it up. It’ll get you where you want to go."

"I want to go some place where they have food. I haven’t eaten for two days. I can’t feed my wife, I can’t feed my kids. I can’t even feed myself."

"Pick it up and you can eat all you want."

"It smells like dog poop," Simple Bob said, picking up the bill.

"Lick the candy off it, buy breakfast and you won’t have to worry about lunch and dinner."

"Yeah. It’ll make me sick or maybe I’ll die," Simple Bob said. "It tastes like dog poop."

"Think of the money," Satan said. "A hundred dollars."

And Simple Bob swallowed the dollar.

Brave John was on his way to the office, having to walk because his wife was using the airplane. He heard someone saying, "Drill. Drill here. Drill now." He looked up and saw Satan leaning against a national monument. "Drill and gas will be cheaper."

"Yeah, maybe in twenty years," Brave John said. "People have cut back on consumption and gas is already cheaper. Slow to 55 and it’ll be even cheaper. Conservation works now."

"There’s no money in conservation," Satan said. "People aren’t going to sacrifice for their children or their country. Drill your way to oil independence."

"I’m not good at economics but I can do math," Brave John said. "We have 3% of the world’s oil reserves and we consume 25% of the world’s oil. We have already leased four-fifths of the offshore resources. In the last four years the Bureau of Land Management has issued almost 29,000 permits to drill on land that belongs to the people but oil companies have drilled less than 19,000 wells. They are hoarding leases until the price of oil is even higher than now."

"And when the time is ripe, they will drill those wells and suck up that oil."

"We will have used all our oil. And our kids will have nothing."

"When all the oil is gone we’ll throw billions of dollars at the oil companies to find alternative sources. It’s not alterative sources of energy I hate, it’s alterative corporations sucking taxpayers and consumers dry. The purpose of government is to see that the money goes in the right pockets. Just say, ‘Drill here, drill now’ and some of that money will go in your pocket--er--campaign funding."

"But leasing more of the people’s land to oil companies won’t lower the price of gas now. That’s a lie."

"So what? It will be years before anyone knows that and you can say, ‘Yes, it was a lie but it was the right thing to do.’ Besides, by then they will be concerned about a bigger lie, each big lie displaced by a bigger lie so no one can focus on the previous lies. It’s infallible."

"It’s insane. It will drive people crazy. It will destroy the nation."

"Well, "Satan said. "Yes. But think of the dollars."

And Brave John swallowed it.

He was often called Bob the Good, most often by himself.  He gave one percent more than a tithe, after taxes.  He sat on the front row at worship service and said amen in a manly, robust way.  In Sunday School class he sadly shook his head at heresy, factual error or perverse interpretation.  When the teacher called upon Bob to pray and Bob saw two other Bobs rising he rushed into prayer ahead of them.  Also ahead of his thoughts.  “I pledge allegiance to the...Holy Bible and to the God for which it stands.  And we pray that the teacher will not lead us astray with talk of sacrifice but will remind us of your promise to prosper us.”  

Every night Bob reminded God how good he had been and how he expected God’s promised prosperity the next day.  Every morning he reminded God that His promise was as certain as a chain letter. 

Bob the Good rose early on a cold Saturday.  He dressed warmly in his long leather coat and hurried to the church to be the first one there.  He stamped his feet in his cozy boots and blew on his gloved fingers waiting for the others to arrive.  “What took you so long?” he asked them.  

Once inside, he shed his long leather coat with real fur lining and volunteered to chop onions.  The onions were for the hot dogs that the church volunteers would feed to the homeless who met under the bridge, the coldest and draftiest place in town.  He always volunteered to chop onions and smiled through his tears.

When the hot dogs, ice tea and ice cream that had passed its expiration date were ready, everyone loaded tables into a truck and themselves into cars and reassembled under the bridge.  Bob the Good was first to arrive and had set up two tables by himself although two men usually set them up to avoid scratching them on the concrete floor.   

The hungry homeless lined up, stamping their feet, blowing on their fingers and huddling against the wind.  Bob volunteered to pray, blessed the food and asked that those receiving it be properly grateful to those who left their warm beds to serve it.  And also to God.  

He took his place in line and spooned onions over the cold buns and warm hot dogs, looked into each face and said, “May God help you become worthy of a minimum wage job.”

Some of the men had sturdy shoes and jackets and were wrapped in a faded blanket.  Others were in canvas shoes, without socks or coats.  One elderly man wore only a t-shirt and shivered.  Bob had to hold his plate to avoid spilling onions on the concrete floor.

Bob’s heart was pinched by the elderly man who didn’t have a hat or a scarf to cover his large ears and his bald head.  Who knew but what Bob had been born for such a time as this?  Abandoning the onions, he went to the man who was hurriedly devouring the hot dog before it turned into a popsicle.  Bob took off the long leather coat with real fur lining that his mother gave him.  “Here,” he said, helping the man slip it on, knowing that God would reward him as sure as cash back credit cards.    

“Thank you.  God bless you.  Thank you,” the man said.  

It wasn’t a good fit but it was protection from the wind and the cold.  Bob told him how to oil the leather so that it didn’t crack. 

“And be careful you don’t stretch the seams,” Bob said before returning to his post behind the onions.  What a good thing I have done, he thought.  I hope someone noticed.  He shivered mightily and said several times that it was cold.

“I thought you had a coat,” Tiffany said.

Bob gave a sigh of relief that someone had noticed.  “You mean my long leather coat with real fur lining that my mother gave me when I moved from the south side of San Antonio to the north side where it is colder?  I gave it to a man who had no coat,” he said.

“That was so sweet,” said Tiffany who was pretty sweet herself.  She put her arms around him to warm his back and that was even sweeter.  Sweetest of all, Tiffany told the pastor.  

The next morning when announcing the good work the church was doing, the pastor told the story of Bob the Good giving his coat to a coatless man.  Bob stood and with bent head humbly accepted the church’s applause.  

He didn’t tell anyone of his sleepless night.  Pondering what coat to wear should some freezing person ask for it.  He pondered for a long time before choosing the leather coat with fur lining that his mother had given him that he was going to take to a consignment store.  God would reward him as he had promised as sure as frequent flier miles.  And without the black out dates and holiday restrictions.

He was often called Bob the Good, most often by himself.  He gave one percent more than a tithe, after taxes.  He sat on the front row at worship service and said amen in a manly, robust way.  In Sunday School class he sadly shook his head at heresy, factual error or perverse interpretation.  When the teacher called upon Bob to pray and Bob saw two other Bobs rising he rushed into prayer ahead of them.  Also ahead of his thoughts.  “I pledge allegiance to the...Holy Bible and to the God for which it stands.  And we pray that the teacher will not lead us astray with talk of sacrifice but will remind us of your promise to prosper us.”  

Every night Bob reminded God how good he had been and how he expected God’s promised prosperity the next day.  Every morning he reminded God that His promise was as certain as a chain letter. 

Bob the Good rose early on a cold Saturday.  He dressed warmly in his long leather coat and hurried to the church to be the first one there.  He stamped his feet in his cozy boots and blew on his gloved fingers waiting for the others to arrive.  “What took you so long?” he asked them.  

Once inside, he shed his long leather coat with real fur lining and volunteered to chop onions.  The onions were for the hot dogs that the church volunteers would feed to the homeless who met under the bridge, the coldest and draftiest place in town.  He always volunteered to chop onions and smiled through his tears.

When the hot dogs, ice tea and ice cream that had passed its expiration date were ready, everyone loaded tables into a truck and themselves into cars and reassembled under the bridge.  Bob the Good was first to arrive and had set up two tables by himself although two men usually set them up to avoid scratching them on the concrete floor.   

The hungry homeless lined up, stamping their feet, blowing on their fingers and huddling against the wind.  Bob volunteered to pray, blessed the food and asked that those receiving it be properly grateful to those who left their warm beds to serve it.  And also to God.  

He took his place in line and spooned onions over the cold buns and warm hot dogs, looked into each face and said, “May God help you become worthy of a minimum wage job.”

Some of the men had sturdy shoes and jackets and were wrapped in a faded blanket.  Others were in canvas shoes, without socks or coats.  One elderly man wore only a t-shirt and shivered.  Bob had to hold his plate to avoid spilling onions on the concrete floor.

Bob’s heart was pinched by the elderly man who didn’t have a hat or a scarf to cover his large ears and his bald head.  Who knew but what Bob had been born for such a time as this?  Abandoning the onions, he went to the man who was hurriedly devouring the hot dog before it turned into a popsicle.  Bob took off the long leather coat with real fur lining that his mother gave him.  “Here,” he said, helping the man slip it on, knowing that God would reward him as sure as cash back credit cards.    

“Thank you.  God bless you.  Thank you,” the man said.  

It wasn’t a good fit but it was protection from the wind and the cold.  Bob told him how to oil the leather so that it didn’t crack. 

“And be careful you don’t stretch the seams,” Bob said before returning to his post behind the onions.  What a good thing I have done, he thought.  I hope someone noticed.  He shivered mightily and said several times that it was cold.

“I thought you had a coat,” Tiffany said.

Bob gave a sigh of relief that someone had noticed.  “You mean my long leather coat with real fur lining that my mother gave me when I moved from the south side of San Antonio to the north side where it is colder?  I gave it to a man who had no coat,” he said.

“That was so sweet,” said Tiffany who was pretty sweet herself.  She put her arms around him to warm his back and that was even sweeter.  Sweetest of all, Tiffany told the pastor.  

The next morning when announcing the good work the church was doing, the pastor told the story of Bob the Good giving his coat to a coatless man.  Bob stood and with bent head humbly accepted the church’s applause.  

He didn’t tell anyone of his sleepless night.  Pondering what coat to wear should some freezing person ask for it.  He pondered for a long time before choosing the leather coat with fur lining that his mother had given him that he was going to take to a consignment store.  God would reward him as he had promised as sure as frequent flier miles.  And without the black out dates and holiday restrictions.

Visit another country and you will hear an American voice saying, “That’s real bread,” with disapproval. “That’s real coffee,” with distaste. “That’s real sugar,” with displeasure. We have become addicted to the artificial--manicured cowboys who are afraid of horses, male impersonators who pose as Mission Accomplished, phony patriots who wear flag lapels but refuse to serve in the military or pay taxes to provide for those who do, fabricated prophets who loll in ease and revel in wealth.

We are inured to radio and TV preachers who promise that if we give them a few bucks God will return it to us in gold. We are accustomed to preachers who caution us to stay at the center of the consumer culture--not too greedy nor too gullible; not too eager to start a war nor too loath to serve; not too keen to profit from disaster nor too hesitant to succor the victims; not the first to merchandise the church nor yet the last to beg others to provide charity in your name.  It’s no surprise that some were shocked, no really, they were shocked to run into the real thing, Jeremiah Wright. 

The media demanded to know how Obama could sit in a church and listen to Jeremiah Wright. Never mind that members of what used to be called the “free press” stoutly declared that there would be no religious test for Mitt Romney. No one would ask Romney how he could sit in a church that for years did not permit blacks to be members and hear that non-Mormons would be cast into outer darkness. No silly questions about Moroni, gold plates or baptizing for the dead. 

Kathleen Parker wrote, “Why should (Romney) or anyone disavow his faith to run for president? How did that idea ever gain entry into the political arena of a country founded on the idea of religious liberty?” Peggy Noonan wrote that Romney’s “speech’s main and immediate achievement is that foes of his faith will now have to defend their thinking in public.”

Millions of good Christians had heard preachers declare that God would damn America for child labor laws, divorce, allowing women to vote, integration, permitting blacks and whites to marry, giving gay Americans equal rights. Pat Robertson called for the assassination of Hugo Chavez, the democratically elected president of Venezuela. He and Jerry Falwell said that on 9/11 God damned America because of gays and People for the American Way. John Hagee said that God damned America with Katrina because of a planned gay parade in New Orleans. Or maybe they damned America because of gays and liberals.

Adherents of Christian Identity believe the Bible is the history of the white race who are the real “chosen people.” Non-whites are “beasts of the field” without souls. Arnold Murray, host of the Bible-study program “Shepherd’s Chapel,” condemns a race of evil people born of Eve’s sexual union with Satan in the Garden of Eden. He calls them Kenites “who slipped in among the Jewish people in Jerusalem and claim to be God’s chosen people when in fact they are of Lucifer.” In 1967 “Jerusalem fell to the Kenites during the six day war.” Murray called the Talmud “the filthiest piece of literature ever written.”

John Hagee declared that “All Muslims have a mandate to kill Christians and Jews,” and that God gave Israel the deed to land that includes all of Palestine, all of Jordan, parts of Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. How Israel is going to occupy it without genocide Hagee hasn’t said. However, Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnal has stated that if Palestinians don’t stop their resistance to occupation they “will bring upon themselves a bigger holocaust, because we will use all our might to defend ourselves.”

Rod Parsley, said “America was founded in part with the intention of seeing this false religion (Islam) destroyed,” and warned that if we don’t do it God may destroy us. Pat Robertson said, “There will never be world peace until God's house and God's people are given their rightful place of leadership at the top of the world.” The Catholic magazine Fidelity stated, “The civil rights movement was nothing more than the culmination of an attempt to transform the Negro into a paradigm of sexual liberation that had been the pet project of the cultural revolutionaries since the 1920s."

Father Robert Drinan of Massachusetts was a member of Congress in the ‘70s until the pope ordered him to resign. There is no religious test for Catholics although Drinan was a politician who chose to represent the pope rather than those who elected him. When the pope said Bush’s war on Iraq was immoral and a crime against peace, the Catholic Bishops of America agreed, and millions of Catholics, especially politicians and members of the media, left their church rather than hear their country called immoral. They must have or they wouldn’t dare criticize Obama for remaining in his church until the media drove him from it. 

Neither George Bush has been asked to justify the financial and political support of the Messiah, Rev. Sun Myung Moon, head of the Unification Church that believes that Eve had sex with Satan and passed the sin to Adam by having sex with him. God sent Jesus to restore man’s purity but Jesus was betrayed by the Jews before he could beget sinless children. Because Jesus failed, God was required to send a second Messiah, Rev. Moon, to start the purification process by having sex with women and producing sinless children. Moon called America “Satan’s harvest” and promised to do away with democracy in one world theocracy. He was sentenced to two years in prison for tax-fraud. In 2004 Republicans allowed Moon to use a room in the Senate Building where he was crowned “King of Peace.” Moon’s followers crowed that the US government had bowed down to the Messiah.

Frank Schaeffer said that although his father, Rev. Francis Schaeffer, “denounced America and even called for the violent overthrow of the US government, he was invited to lunch with presidents Ford, Reagan and Bush, Sr.” 

George Bush declared that God told him to take out Taliban and he did and then God told him to take out Saddam and he did. Ignorant of the fact that all Protestants are evangelical, those who call themselves “evangelical,” were not troubled that God told Bush to start two wars but that the Almighty did not speak to Bush in King James English.

Former Speaker of the House Tom DeLay declared he was on a mission “to promote a biblical worldview.” Senator Inhofe said America got what it deserved on 9/11 because we forced Israel to give up part of the earth that belongs only to them, courtesy of God. Senator McCain said that Washington, D.C. was “Satan’s City.” On 9/11 God damned America because of politicians and lobbyists. 

There is no religious extremism unless you’re Barack Obama’s pastor. As the media and the Supreme Court say, “Different rules for different folks.”

The pristine ears of the news manufacturers and character assassins on radio and TV had never heard an extremist before. Radio host Michael Reagan called for the murder of those who believed the US government was complicit in 9/11. "You take them out, they are traitors to this country, and shoot them...I'll pay for the bullets." When Reagan learned that some babies were being named “Hezbollah,” which is what Republicans call themselves in English, “God’s Own Party,” Reagan said, “You know what I'd get 'em for a first birthday? I'd put a grenade up their butts and light it. Happy birthday, baby. Bye bye."

When Matt Lauer asked Bush about the war on terrorism in August 2004, Bush said: “I don't think you can win it.” In 2008, Secretary of Defense Gates said, “One of the most important lessons of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is that military success is not sufficient to win.” When Howard Dean stated in 2005 that he didn’t believe the war in Iraq was winnable, Erich Muller said Dean should be tried for treason. "These people want every boy to die," he said, although Dean didn’t want any American to die in Iraq. Michael Reagan said Dean “should be arrested and hung for treason.”  

Like Reagan, G. Gordon Liddy, a former aide who betrayed his country to serve Nixon, is also heard on Radio America. (Disclosure: I voted for Nixon) Liddy told his listeners, “Now if the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms comes to disarm you and they are bearing arms, resist them with arms. Go for a head shot; they're going to be wearing bulletproof vests...Kill the sons of bitches."

On his syndicated radio show Neal Boortz said, “When these Katrina so-called refugees were scattered about the country, it was just a glorified episode of putting out the garbage.” MSNBC commentator Pat Buchanan said, “ The central objection to the present flood of illegals is they are not English-speaking white people from Western Europe; they are Spanish speaking brown and black people from Mexico, Latin America and the Caribbean." Michael Savage said, “The Statue of Liberty is crying, she’s been raped and disheveled--raped and disheveled by illegal aliens.”

American Immigration Control Foundation stated, “The combined forces of open immigration and multiculturalism constitute a mortal threat to American civilization." The American Spectator insisted, “The preservation of the existing ethnocultural character of the United States is not in itself an illegitimate goal.” Chronicles magazine wrote in July 1990: “High rates of non-European immigration, even if the immigrants come with the best of intentions in the world, will swamp us. Not all, I hasten to add, do come with the best intentions." Samuel Francis wrote, “Americans who want to conserve their civilization need to get rid of elites (sic) who want to wreck it, but they also need to kick out the vagrant savages who have wandered across the border, now claim our country as their own, and impose their cultures upon us.”  

Shortly after 9/11 Tim Russert, Rudy Giuliani and Cardinal McCarrick agreed that there was divine guidance in George Bush being commander in chief on 9/11. Apparently, it was also divine guidance that Bush forgot that in 1998 US intelligence learned of a terrorist plan to attack the WTC with hijacked airliners and in 1999 that there was a similar plan to attack the Pentagon and other government buildings in Washington, D.C. It was divine guidance that when told that an airliner had hit the WTC Bush forgot that five weeks earlier he had been warned of such an event and blamed a “lousy pilot.” It was divine guidance that when he was told that the US was under attack he went catatonic until after the news cameras stopped filming and the crews left, until the Secret Service removed him from the room. A reporter, a mayor and a cardinal declared that God damned America because five Supreme Court justices agreed that citizens did not have a right to have their votes counted.

Bush, Cheney, and their “complicit enablers” have tried to make dissent dishonorable rather than democratic. It is unpatriotic to suggest that America is not “a city on a hill,” a biblical ideal. A former Marine, Jeremiah Wright is a patriot who will die for his country but not lie for it. Like patriotism, Christianity is what you do for the poor, the hungry, the homeless, those seeking justice, not something you wear on your lapel. Jeremiah dared look into the heart of America and say this is not the biblical ideal, that you can’t ask God to bless America for genocide on the Native Americans and the theft of their land, for slavery and pervasive racism, for wars of commerce and empire.

I don’t believe that the government spread AIDS among the black community. I do remember Reagan’s reluctance for the government to get involved. Some Christian preachers declared AIDS was God’s plan to purge the world of homosexuals and that God would damn America if we did anything to stop sexual cleansing. As always, women, children and charity were collateral damage. 

Before 1972 I wouldn’t have believed that for 40 years the government would use black men to study the effect of untreated syphilis, denying them necessary medication. Some from my Marine battalion were ordered to observe a nuclear explosion but I didn’t know that troops were also used to test “incapacitating” narcotics and real and simulated chemical and biological agents, including sarin and VX. I didn’t want to believe the ABC News report that “mentally distressed veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan were recruited for government tests on pharmaceutical drugs linked to suicide and other violent side effects.”  

AP reporter John Heilprin wrote of a federally funded scientific experiment in 2000 to spread sewage sludge in “poor, low-income...black neighborhoods in Baltimore.” The families were told that it was safe. The sludge was tilled into the lawn as protection from lead poisoning because if the children ate the dirt “the sludge would mix with the lead in the soil and make that pass safely through the body. That was the researchers’ theory.” Dr. McBride, a soil chemist from the Cornell Waste Management Institute said, “Actually thinking about a child ingesting this, there’s a very good chance that it’s not safe.”

Although the media are still in deep denial, documents at the National Security Archives at George Washington University (nsarchives@gwu.edu) reveal that drug smugglers were used by the Reagan administration to get guns to Contras fighting the democratically elected government of Nicaragua. The reason John Kerry was Swift-boated was not only because he was a hero in Vietnam but because of his committee report that stated, "It is clear that individuals who provided support for the contras were involved in drug trafficking, the supply network of the contras was used by drug trafficking organizations...In each case, one or another agency of the US government had information regarding the involvement..." Much of that cocaine ended in black neighborhoods.

I still don’t believe that the government spread AIDS among the black community but for years the government has been underestimating the number of new incidents of HIV infection by 40% and does less to prevent infection in this country than we do in Africa. It isn’t hard for me to understand why Rev. Wright and others believe the government permitted the spread of AIDS. But saying it makes people uncomfortable, something no respectable preacher would do. 

Billy Graham, “America’s Preacher,” had the ear of presidents, the eyes of the world. He could have spoken to the presidents about America’s sins--racism, greed, nationalism, militarism, pride in its exceptionalism--like the biblical prophets spoke to kings. He didn’t. Truman was the only president not to seek Graham’s embrace. Truman understood the difference between preacher and politician and that God and flags are not a good combination. Graham was comfortable in the presence of presidents and they were comfortable with him. Rev. Jeremiah Wright would not have made that mistake.

THE TRUE STORY OF POSTMODERN JOB 

Based on Actual Events

One day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them.  The Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job.  There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright and he remembers me every day of his life.”  

And Satan said, “Does Job remember you for nothing?  It is because he has a non-submissive and dyspeptic wife, unpleasant children, a mortgaged house with leaky roof and bad plumbing, a mean boss that he dislikes, a boring job that he hates, meager salary, no health insurance, no savings, arthritis, gingivitis, gastritis, pesticidis and sciatica.  He thinks of you every day because he hopes you will rescue him from his miserable life and that he will find rest in Heaven.

But make him a CEO with stock options and bonuses for failure, give him a young, obedient wife, no children, two Mercedes and a Jaguar, a mansion in Carmel-by-the Sea, condos in Aspen and Paris, apartments in New York and Prague and a private jet, a personal chef, robust health, perfect teeth, no allergies, good hair, a golf buddy in the White House and he will forget you.”

And the Lord God said to Satan, “He is in your hands.  Tempt him as you will.”

And Job’s wife left him for a career, his children moved to a far city, his boss fired him and Job found that he was an entrepreneur, quickly amassing mansions, fortunes, corporations, a private jet that whisked him from breakfast at Tiffany’s to lunch at the White House to a moveable feast in Paris with vintage French wine at his side and submissive Swedish models at his fingertips.  

And Job forgot God.  

Then one day Satan said to the Lord God, “Where is your servant Job who will never forget you?”  And the Lord God said, “Job is your servant because you have given him earthly delights.”  And the Lord God took away Job’s fortune, his homes and condos, his robust health and good hair.  Job’s non-submissive wife returned to him with flatulence, his children came home to borrow money, his house was flooded from rain and leaky plumbing, his boss gave him back his demeaning job with meager salary, no retirement, bad teeth, bad hair, bad health and no insurance.  

And the latter part of Job’s life was more blessed than before.  And Job remembered God and thanked him.

First published in The Wittenburg Door (www.wittenburgdoor.com)

Tikkun  to heal, repair and transform the world

A note from Rabbi Michael Lerner

My Talk with the Saudis, and What I Learned from Them

By Rabbi Michael Lerner, Editor,TIKKUN
Part Two

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 Saddma 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 for Middle 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. Theyhoped 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 particular in 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-howcompletely 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 Agey 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

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

Tikkun  to heal, repair and transform the world

A note from Rabbi Michael Lerner

My Talk with the Saudis, and What I Learned from Them

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 likeSaudi-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 theconditions 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 break-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 lived in Spain in the 11th  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 flagm 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 eveyone else on the planet, and that the smartest way to achieve Homeland Security is not through Domination and "Power over" 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 peoles 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 a. 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! Lets 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 the PTSD 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.

Parody of “Farmer’s Union Leader Knocks Woman’s Suffrage,” published in the Fort Worth Semi-weekly Record, Feb. 16, 1919

The idea of a pink pulpit no doubt appeals to woman’s love for the ridiculous but for the church to unsex the human race so that a woman may rule over a man is human abomination and religious tofu.  God gave Eve to Adam with the pledge that she would be his helpmate and with that order of companionship God has blessed woman and man has honored her.  Now, after 6007 years, three months, four days and seventeen hours of progress, she proposes to provoke God and decoy man by amending an agreement to which she was not a party.

Why are women dissatisfied with their role when men want them to ever remain our superior?  We are willing to join in every effort to elevate woman but the descent of woman to the clergy is the most awful tragedy in civilization.  As she slinks to the pulpit she will like the setting sun tint the horizon with the rays of her departing glory, she will tenderly kiss the mountain tops of her achievement, she will allure the dense and the dumb with her beauty as she disappears downward into apostasy, and heaven and man will tremble.

Why is woman restless under the God-given crown of motherhood?  Is it not sufficient that future presidents of the Southern Baptist Convention nurse at her breast?  That future popes call on her to make them clean?  Can ambition leap to more glorious heights than to sing lullabies to future geniuses at Bob Jones University?

Woman is the medium through which angels whisper their messages to mankind; it is her hand that plants thoughts in the intellectual vineyard; it is through her heart that hope, love and sympathy overflow and bless mankind.  But the Apostle Paul told her to shut up in church.

Why this inordinate thirst for power?  Man cannot enter this world without her presence; he cannot eat without her blessing; he cannot rest in peace without her consent.  Why crave authority over man when he has given her his heart, his name, his money?  Why does she insist on taking his calling, his careworn smile, his dog-eared Schofield Reference Bible?

No man--especially if he is married--would deny woman any right she demands.  Take the earth and give us peace.  But what bond can she give us that she is capable of leading the Southern Baptist Convention?  Man has won his laurels rescuing her from her own folly, from doing things that God never intended she should do and leaving undone her divinely appointed task of serving her husband.  Since the days of Adam and Eve woman has offered man an apple and given him a lemon.  

Woman has always been the first to kneel at the feet of false gods; she is the slave of custom, the victim of sentiment and the prey of fashion.  Does she not seek to intensify the figure God gave her? to augment her beauty? to enhance her charm?  There is more power in her smile than in the pulpit.  It is she who is at fault for sin in this world.  Why does she not arrest the glance of the seductress? retard the saunter of the wanton? neutralize the smile of the harlot?  Why does she not save homes from the peril of the male’s wandering eye?  Why does she not bring up the child in the way it should go?  Why does she not prepare a meal devoid of French cuisine?  Let woman solve her own problems before invading the potent pulpit. 

Doesn’t every man know how difficult it is for her to make up her mind and how easy it is for her to change it?  Does he not know how impossible it is for her to say “yes” or “no” without revising, amending and explaining?  Would man in a cruel moment rob her of the charms of hesitation, deny her the glory of doubt or willfully terminate her happy dreams by forcing her to bring forth a budget agreeable to a male board of deacons?

Is not the selection of a church location more important than the selection of a pastor?  Is not the employment of a church janitor more consequential than the employment of a designer for the pastor’s apparel?  Is not the church’s choice of praise songs more significant than the hysterical cry of a woman’s call to the altar?

It is gratifying to note that it is not the farmer’s wife who is clamoring to be a pastor, or the plumber’s girlfriend, or the carpenter’s daughter.  Being a pastor will give her no assistance in ironing her husband’s shirts, mending her children’s clothes or mowing the lawn.  

It is argued that a noble woman is more capable of being a pastor than a worthless man but churches, and women, have ever been fond of worthless men.  But what man can find it in his heart to look with pride upon his mother-in-law known as the most powerful pulpiteer on TV?  Upon his mother acknowledged to be the ablest Bishop in Christendom?  Upon his wife recognized as the pastor of the first woman president?

God forbid that we should become a henpecked church where deacons meetings become gossip parlors, where church suppers become fast-food cuisine and men who have toiled all day must wash dishes while boys missing buttons from their unironed shirts and girls absent bows from their unwashed hair careen recklessly and unattended.

  Woman may temporarily decoy the scepter of power from man with her charms and the lure of false logic but does she not fear that the church will seek revenge and hurl her back to the past where she was a hewer of wood and bearer of water?  Woman, beware!  Touch not the pulpit!  In it are the charm of haute couture, the lure of the half-price sale and the sting of a husband’s rebuke. 

The Sex Life of the Pharisee

Slomo O’Neill was a Pharisee of the Pharisees.  He not only kept the Sabbath, he kept three Sabbaths, one before and one after to be certain he rested as much as God did.  Not only did he avoid mixing meat and milk dishes, he did not eat milk products and meat products the same day.  He retched when he passed Roman soldiers gnawing cheeseburgers and avoided publicans selling pig knuckles and beer.

To avoid being tempted by a woman, he walked the streets of Jerusalem with his head down in a prayerful pose, seeing only the cobbled streets and an occasional crusty foot, stubbed toe, infected toe nail.  One day he grazed a shoulder against the stone wall as he turned a corner and before he could avert his eyes he saw a plump shapely toe with a perfectly rounded pink nail.  Turning away he pounded his head against the rough stones to banish the image from his mind.  His bloodied forehead inflamed his vision of the toe   He went to the temple and prayed loudly throwing heavy coins into the coin box.  The toe remained as succulent and tempting as ever.

He fled the temple knocking himself unconscious when he collided with a donkey conveying balm to Gilead.  He sat up, stars circling his head like those over Sisera.  He looked down and there before him was the toe, as desirable as ever and surrounded by equally desirable sweet pink...no, no, not piglets, hams, er lambs, their downy bodies reclining on soft supple leather and smelling of inces--incense.  What had happened to him?  Not only did he lust, he lusted in replication.

“Away,” he cried.  “Be gone, evil temptress.”  And with a swish of cloth and a faint bouquet of woman, she was gone.  Come back, his heart cried out, come back, but with one hand he gripped his mouth and with another his throat.  He made his way home with lamentations and Song of Solomon (KJV).  If her toes were so tender, who could endure the nape of her neck?  The lithe, responsive arch of her foot?  

The next day he grazed the stones of the same corner, removing the scab on his shoulder, and with his head bent in a prayer pose his eyes darted left and right in search of the delicious toes made even more luscious by his fervid memory.  Up and down the crowded street he went without success.  And the next day.  And the next.  His head was bloody but bowed yet the image of five perfect lilies remained.  His cloak stuck to his skinned shoulder and each day his sanguine head rose higher and his eyes saw more.  But not the object of his desire.

Then one day in the crowded market among the grapes, the pomegranates, juicy melons, fleshy figs he saw the toes of his discontent.  There, among the throng, he knelt to study the grapes, to press the pomegranates, stroke the melons and feel up the figs.  Unable to countenance what he was about to do, he closed his eyes as his mouth sought paradise and kissed . . .a hairy, crusty toe.

“Get up, you fool,” said a Samaritan camel driver, hoisting him by the back of his cloak and smiting him on both cheeks.  “I have slaves for that.” 

And the Pharisee hurried away after a sandal to his sitter.   

He who has eyes to see, let him hear: not every Samaritan is a good Samaritan.  Not every woman is an evil temptress.  It is better to look temptation in the eye than to trip over a foot and fall sucker to a toe.

First published in The Wittenburg Door 

www.wittenburgdoor.com

Remember when you could sing “the land of the free and the home of the brave” with pride? More than 43,000 veterans declared “medically unfit” for combat by doctors have been sent back to Afghanistan or Iraq. An additional 58,000 soldiers have been caught in stop-loss. According to Psychiatric News, 117 members of the Army killed themselves in 2007; 934 unsuccessfully attempted suicide. Those who had served at least once in Iraq or Afghanistan accounted for 61 percent of fatalities and 33 percent of attempts. Forty-four percent of those who committed suicide and 55% of those who attempted it had at least one diagnosed mental disorder, mainly mood or anxiety disorders, or substance abuse. What about those statistics makes you proud?

That’s not the whole story. Editor & Publisher has been examining the “noncombat” deaths in Iraq, “often suicides, which usually come to light only due to the diligence of local newspapers.” The parents of a soldier in Texas were told that their daughter had died of “friendly fire.” Only after the mother became suspicious were they told their daughter had been murdered. It required six months and the help of a congressman to get the 1200-page report that revealed that their daughter had been abused several times by the soldier who killed her and the Army had done little to protect her.

A Washington Times/ABC News investigation revealed that “mentally distressed veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are being recruited for government tests on pharmaceutical drugs linked to suicide and other violent side effects.” It took the VA three months to inform patients of the mental side effects. The Boston Globe reported that hundreds of U.S. soldiers assigned to guard a chemical plant in Iraq were made ill by exposure to a highly toxic chemical after their KBR supervisors told them the chemical was a “mild irritant.” “These soldiers were bleeding from the nose, spitting blood," said Danny Langford, an equipment technician from Texas brought to work at the Qarmat Ali Water treatment plant in 2003. 

 
What kind of people treat so dishonorably those who volunteer to stand between them and a vague enemy the government tells them they have to fear? And still they faithfully serve. Despite the millions who “support” the war and/or the troops by buying lapel flags and yellow ribbons there is no one to replace them.

There is reason to fear because despite so many warnings of an impending attack that intelligence agencies complained of “information fatigue” the Bush administration was unable to defend the country from nineteen hijackers for an hour and a half. The incompetence of the Bush administration that has made the world more dangerous and America less safe is well known; nevertheless, the brave soldier on. Those who served in World War Two, the Cold War, Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm and Bush’s war on Iraq have not quailed. They will still honor their oath to defend the Constitution of the United States of America. 

Four Supreme Court justices won’t. They profess to be so terrified by the administration’s inability to protect America that they agree with George Bush that the Constitution must be tossed in the trash. Justice Scalia, who has always had a problem determining fact from fiction, included a lie in the minority opinion, stating that “at least 30 of those prisoners released from Guantanamo Bay have returned to the battlefield.” As law professors at Seton Hall and others have stated, “not a single detainee was released by a court.” They were released by the political appointees of George W. Bush, sometimes over the objection of the military. “According to the Department of Defense’s published and unpublished data and reports, not a single released Guantánamo detainee has ever attacked any Americans.” Congressional hearings determined that the recidivism of 30 prisoners was not true two weeks before Justice Scalia wrote his opinion based on that lie.

Does that sound like “the land of the free and the home of the brave” to you? 

Hunting Camp Pranks

or

The Physiological and Psychological Benefits of Ancient Rites Practiced in Bucolic and Fraternal Settings

For reasons yet to be explained, God and the Supreme Court placed hunting season during the shortest days of the year.  For those who venture into nature to collect something edible rather than to escape TV, that means a lot of non-hunting time in hunting camp. Some hunters fill those hours with eating, drinking, arguing hunting strategies, conjuring visions of the next hunt, playing cards, eating, cooking, tinkering with mechanical devices such as hunting vehicles, cleaning hunting gear including selected game, cleaning the cabin, cleaning oneself.

While those are meaningful, productive and necessary, the serious hunter also requires creative activities.  The two fundamental exercises of the imagination are: One, the preparation, polishing and delivery of the day’s hunting story that includes in detail every animal seen, description of the width, breadth, length and points of the bucks’ horns with poetic license; and the enumeration of the number of turkeys, feral hogs and other game with manly exaggeration.  Two, preparation of the “prank.”

Benefits of hunting pranks:  Nonbelievers and other ignorant folks pretend that hunting pranks are sophomoric tricks played by born-again adolescents.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  Prank benefits include:

Rejuvenation of the spirit--brings bounce to legs weary after long hikes looking for game and uplift to the spirits of the disappointed.

Subjects for conversation--contrary to popular opinion, campfires are not occasion for idle conversations but rather for discourse on the philosophy of hunting, the psychology of rifle calibers, and the chemistry of beer versus bourbon.  When the hunting stories grow thin, the prank stories begin.

Bonding--friends who laugh together are less likely to mistake each other for a turkey behind a cedar bush. 

Heart stimulation--not as great as seeing a Boone and Crockett buck but better than after a stressful day at work coming home to a tired housewife and three cross children.

Exercise--sometimes for both the pranker, hereafter referred to as the jokester, and the butt of the joke, hereafter referred to as the butt.

Stimulates Imagination:  at times when sleep does not come easily such as deciding whether to get out of a warm sleeping bag to relieve oneself in hope of getting warm again or trying to doze until the alarm goes off, the jokester can dream of new pranks; the butt can imagine what pranks he/she will face before breakfast.

Best Times for pranks:  Pranks can be played at almost any time but the experienced jokester knows jokes are not always appropriate.  For example: when a fellow hunter has in his sights the buck he has stalked for days, several pranks will come to the jokester’s mind.  Leave them there.

Best pranks for the right time:  The accomplished jokester knows the pranks most appropriate for specific times.

First cup of coffee.  Sleepers are rousing, some have coffee in their hands, some have cigarettes in one hand and coffee in the other, some are out of bed and fully clothed with a cup of coffee in hand.  Some are on the move.  The first hunter on the move is the butt of the joke.

Appropriate Gag:  Voice in the Outhouse.