Nerd Quotients

Gigapan

Check it out.

Next up for NASA...

The new NASA lunar rover marched past the President, First Lady and Vice President yesterday in the inauguration parade. Check it out!

Onward...

It was great to see the inauguration even from afar yesterday. The boys and I watched the daylong transition and were impressed by the stamina of the Obamas and the multitudes who stood shoulder-to-shoulder on the National Mall from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial.

I thought President Obama's speech was excellent. He was pragmatic, adult and toward the end, better than any preacher or rabbi in connecting the higher spiritual relevance with action in this world. I did, however, enjoy the Reverend Lowrey's benediction at the end, mostly for its humor and inclusiveness. A smart leader knows his or her audience doesn't necessarily embrace a divine creator the way that he/she does.

Afterward, it was interesting to see the presidential limousine/armored car with the seal on its door. Earlier on their travels the indentation on the door was empty.

I thought the Bushes were gracioius, at least in their body language and was pleased with the civilized transition of power.

Aside: Some of the talking heads were the most annoying part of the coverage. Although I enjoyed and appreciated the likes of Bob Sheiffer (sp?), Peggy Noonan's multiple references to Jesus Christ in referencing Rick Warren's one-sided invocation, Katie Couric's picking at Obama's speech, Jake Tapper calling Malia and Sasha Obama "little queens," and the insipid negative remarks about the First Lady's clothing were cloying.

Also, in the Robin Roberts interview President Obama was gracious in his explanation of Chief Justice Roberts' delivery of the oath of office. As Joanie said, it was like he was mesmerized for a moment. It was a reminder that even our leaders are human. (At the end of the oath of office, I liked how Roberts used inflection in the final sentence with Obama strongly affirming that in a statement.)

I watched three of the balls (Neighborhood, Commander-in-Chief, Youth) and was impressed by Barack and Michell's grace and his ability to speak extemporaneously. It wasn't the same thing over and over at each. He connected with the audience. And their dancing together was beautiful. Beyonce Knowles sang "At Last "beautifully and has a better voice than I thought. It was fun to watch the president joke with members of the armed forces stationed in Afghanistan as to whether each was a Cubs fan or Sox fan. Hilarious.

Obama Has Class

I am heartened by our soon-to-be president's sense of grace and generosity of spirit. That and his capacity for forgiveness.

We Are One...

...today at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC.

Here's U2 singing the song they wrote to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Shalom, Salaam, Peace...

"Together, the peace-seeking majority of each of our communities can call forth the deeper wisdom of its own tradition and the deep anguish each feels for the death and destruction among our kinfolk in the region of Abraham, Hagar, and Sarah."

From Rabbi Waskow of the Shalom Center:

Wednesday afternoon I got a phone call: Would I come to Washington on Thursday to stand outside the Israeli Embassy to mourn the dead of Israel and Gaza, and call for a ceasefire?

Groooan. Yes.

So that's where I was yesterday, along with about 50 other people of many different religious and cultural communities -- ranging in age from 22 to 84, all dressed in black -- all mourning the dead both in Gaza and in Israel, all calling for a ceasefire and an end of the Israeli embargo/blockade of Gaza.

The vigil was called by Code Pink, a women's antiwar group founded to oppose the Iraq War. They often use whimsy and humor to oppose war; on this occasion, they were solemn, in mourning, some of them in tears.

Before the vigil actually formed, there was an odd and almost funny encounter. Almost.

About 80 college-student tourists were standing in line at the Embassy door, waiting for a tour and talk with the Ambassador. Most of the vigilers had not yet arrived; so I walked up to the students and just started talking. I explained who we were, what we were doing - Some of them asked questions. One teacher-age man came out of the group to argue with me.

And then...out from the Embassy came a security officer. He walked up to me and said, "This sidewalk is part of the Embassy, part of Israeli territory. Move."

I said, "The American police say we are fine here on this sidewalk."

"It is Israeli territory. Move, or I will arrest you."

I laughed: "Do you really want the Embassy of Israel to arrest an American rabbi on an American sidewalk?"

"I will arrest you."

This time I just looked at him. I shrugged. I stayed put where I was. He walked over to the police officer nearby, spoke with him a minute -- turned and walked back into the Embassy.

Funny -- almost. I thought: "Because you have annexed large parts of the West Bank, you think you can annex a strip of American sidewalk?"

Hours later I learned that one of our vigilers had walked into the Embassy with the students, waited toll the Ambassador was speaking, and interrupted to give him a white rose of peace and urge him to support a ceasefire.

When the vigil itself began, I spoke; so did a former US colonel and foreign service officer who quit over the Iraq war; an aid worker who had spent years on the West Bank; and a Catholic nun in her 8os who was aboard one of the "ship-in" boats to Gaza that brought medicine and baby food past the blockade before the Israeli attack on Gaza began.

Since the attack, let me note, two more of the ship-in boats were forced to turn back. One was rammed by an Israeli Navy vessel and limped back to Cyprus. The other, just yesterday, certified as weapons-free by Cyprus officials, carrying desperately needed medicines for Gaza hospitals, was surrounded by Israeli Navy ships and threatened with being fired on. It too finally sailed back to Cyprus.

I began with the blessing over learning Torah, added one for "livakesh u'lirdof hashalom: to seek peace and pursue it." Then I mentioned the passage in Joshua where - after crossing the Jordan into Canaan, believing he is on a Divine mission to make Canaan the Land of Israel - he is confronted by a mysterious messenger from God - an angel.

Joshua demands, :Are you for us or for our enemies?" The angel answers: "No."

No.

God's vision of reality was deeper, higher. And we were vigiling not on behalf of the Palestinian government or the Israeli government, not supporting either one's use of military force. We were here out of grief and compassion for the dead and the traumatized of both peoples. Thirteen dead Israelis, and tens of thousands traumatized, forced to leave their homes by the rockets. And more than a thousand Palestinians dead, thousands wounded with no hospitals able to heal them, tens of thousands with no home to flee from or return to -- homes blown up.

There had been alternatives, I said. Hamas could have responded to the blockade by asking for hundreds of small boats to break it nonviolently , creating an impossible political problem for the Israeli government. They could have asked Palestinians in Israel and East Jerusalem to create a general strike, a sit-down in Israeli roads, on behalf of ending the embargo.

And Israel, which certainly is obligated to protect its citizens from rocket attacks, could have done so in other ways. Most simply, it could have ended the blockade, as Hamas was demanding. It could have begun negotiating with Hamas, the de facto government of Gaza.

So we had come like God's messenger's "No!" -- to demand an immediate ceasefire, an end to firing rockets from Gaza into Israel, an end to the Israeli invasion and attacks on Gaza, an end to the violence of the Israeli blockade and embargo. If there had been a Hamas office in Washington, we would be there too.

And then I recalled the passage in last week's Torah portion where Jacob blesses his two grandsons Manasseh and Ephraim. In every other brother-struggle story in the Book of Genesis, it takes decades for estranged and hostile brothers to be reconciled. Here it happens instantly that any conflict between the younger and older is dissolved at once --- because there is a third party with greater power and great moral authority.

The Israeli and Palestinian peoples are now so devoured by fear and rage that only a third party can bring both power and moral authority to bear to make a decent peace. That only power is the new Obama administration. It must insist on a regional international emergency peace conference out of which there must come a peace treaty between Israel, a new Palestinian state with its own choice of government, all the Arab states, and Iran.

Why, you might ask, did I draw on Torah, rather than just using secular language to the same end? Because I am trying to heal Torah from the poisonous hate-filled interpretations of it that right-wing Jews and Christians have thrust upon it. Jews chant about the Torah that "all her paths are peace." It is time to make that so.

And because I look toward a grand alliance of American Jews, Muslims, and Christians to get the new American government to take this stand. Otherwise it will not; it will fall into the old habits. Together, the peace-seeking majority of each of our communities can call forth the deeper wisdom of its own tradition and the deep anguish each feels for the death and destruction among our kinfolk in the region of Abraham, Hagar, and Sarah.

In every corner of America, we need new "Tents of Abraham, Hagar, and Sarah," ready to share deeply with each other and then to act together for peace. Already in many communities groups like the one that created the Abrahamic Call for Peace that came from Boston just a few days ago are springing up. And three years ago, I worked with a Benedictine nun and a Sufi Muslim scholar to create a study guide and handbook for such a Grand Religious Alliance, The Tent of Abraham. In it there is also an essay by Rabbi Phyllis Berman on how to "pitch this Tent." The book is available at a discount with free delivery by going to www.beacon.org/tentofabraham (When the website asks for a discount code, type in the word "tent" 9with no quote marks).

With blessings of shalom, salaam, peace -
Arthur

The Hyperdimensional Election of Barack Obama and 2012

Now, I don't know what to make of this story...

The Stupidity of War

Gideon Levy gets right to the point of why there can't be a winner in the Israeli-Hamas war.

Rumi on the War

Here’s the text:

Move beyond any attachment to names.
Every war and every conflict between
human beings
has happened because of some
disagreement about names.
It’s such an unnecessary foolishness,
because just beyond the arguing
there’s a long table of companionship,
set and waiting for us to sit down.
What is praised is one, so the praise is one too,
many jugs being poured into a huge basin.
All religions, all this singing, one song.
The differences are just illusion and vanity.
Sunlight looks slightly different on this
wall than it does on that wall.
and a lot different on this other one,
but it is still one light.
We have borrowed these clothes,
these time-and-space personalities,
from a light,
and when we praise,
we pour them back in.

Wow...Education Is a Must

I am amazed at how many comments on the New York Times story about the Hamas-Israeli conflict that's ongoing claim that Israel should never have been created in the Middle East. This smacks of ignorance and anti-Semitism. I'm one for peace and sharing, but arrogant ignorance of history smacks of selfish wishful thinking on the part of narrow-minded extremists.

In fact unless there is a way where the peoples there can live side by side, and that means Palestinians tolerating an Israeli state, there is no future for anyone in the Middle East. But the giant maw of war must be closed. Declaring the other side gone is not an option. Neighbors must live by one another.

Muslim teachers need to acknowledge this. The Jews have been in the land of Israel since Abraham's time. Israel should be accepted if not embraced. Sephardi and Mizrahi people make up the majority of Jews in the country; it is not only a country of former Europeans. The sooner the Arabs accept the Jews the better.

Hamas and Hezbollah need to stop calling for the eradication of the state of Israel. Israel is not going away. This is a fight of existence.

Mrs. Doan (& Nate)

A Jew's Prayer for the Children of Gaza

By Bradley Burston.

Idan Raichel Project

Now for Something Completely Different...

Here's an idea...

This is worth reading from Rabbi Arthur Waskow at the Shalom Center.

Another Perspective...

A fellow Michigander, whom I met studying in Jerusalem, then at the Michigan Daily and years later in New York at a discussion in someone's living room, Gayle Kirshenbaum wrote an essay which first appeared in Tikkun magazine in 2003.

While I don't agree with everything she writes, I think her points are worth thinking about in how we approach education.

Do we teach supremacy or respect for the truth? Do we meet as equals and acknowledge each other's history? Do we move forward for justice for all? It's an important question for anyone. And it just seemed timely right now.

My dream would be the establishment of a Palestinian state side-by-side with Israel with a third state (and not just metaphysical) of overlapping respect and ability for people to live side-by-side in peace. This would require cooperation on all sides--and maybe some land donated by Jordan, too.

A new future with mutual respect and coexistence could evolve the current Middle East sectarianism.

Of course, that would mean that Hamas (an other organizations bent on destroying Israel) would need to change. It's not only up to Israel.

A Way Forward...

In this cycle of war maybe the groups for peace should work together...

Then again, can there be peace when one side is bent on destroying the other? Words matter and educating generations in hatred precludes progress toward peace.

In Israel's Defense

When a country is attacked, it's natural to want to respond. Israel has been attacked since it was recreated as a modern state in 1948.

As Benny Morris so succicntly explained, Israelis are in a tight spot.

The larger picture includes Hezbollah, Syria and Iran. With the crazy man Ahmedinejad spouting lies and disinformation, one can understand why the "situation" has escalated in the Middle East.

So long as Arab and Muslim educators and leaders deny Israel's right to coexist in their own historical homeland, there will be chaos. Happy New Year.