The Loss of life of a Prophet and Pal, Rabbi Michael Lerner

I obtained this announcement simply now from Rabbi Arthur Waskow of the “Shalom Report.” 

Pricey Companions and Beloveds,

Rabbi Michael Lerner has simply died. Could the reminiscence of this nice justice-pursuer be a blessing to us all. And should the One who gave his teachings such an influence on the world fulfill the compassion and the reality which are embodied by his loss of life.

Until his thoughts received twisted by the ravages of Alzheimer’s, he was an amazing good friend of mine for 50 years and an amazing champion of peace and justice towards nice odds. I usually stated that I cherished him and stored him shut as a result of he at all times selected to threat being nearer to the precipice than I did.

With a damaged coronary heart for a damaged beloved good friend, Arthur 

I knew that Michael’s loss of life was coming since he invited me to his house a number of months in the past to debate it, and share reminiscences of shared work and customary wrestle over time.  It was a particular and graced 50-minute trade and it ended with my asking—and receiving—a blessing from him. 

One of many first subjects he raised was that of Resurrection and I made the purpose that in fact that was a sizzling matter in Jesus’ day, and it was clear what facet of the argument he was on.

I owe Michael loads, for he was a prophetic voice and demonstrated generously the braveness crucial for being true to that vocation.  He introduced forth many different such voices in his Tikkun journal. 

He ran a really alive synagogue in San Francisco for years and I keep in mind main a spiral dance there on one event.  We shared an invite to evangelise back-to-back at All Souls Episcopal church close to Christmas time in San Francisco additionally.  I keep in mind each of us being invited to talk at a gathering of the Dalai Lama in San Jose and I used to be moved that he started his speak with a heart-filled and unselfconscious chant and ritual from his custom for the very various spiritual group that was gathered. 

The best praise I can afford him is that he was a real and constant son of his instructor, the good Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. 

He lived Heschel’s prophetic spirit and nowhere a lot as in taking over individuals of his personal religion who have been blinded to the struggling of the Palestinian peoples.  He dared to talk out commonly about justice for all within the Center East and he underwent appreciable criticism for that from his personal individuals. 

He walked and talked his values and absorbed the injuries that got here with that with out bitterness.

Once I was, in impact, fired from Holy Names Faculty, beneath strain from Ratzinger’s Vatican, and began my very own College of Creation Spirituality in downtown Oakland, he known as me to New Faculty and collectively together with his sidekick, Peter Gabel, dean of the very progressive regulation faculty there, provided to take our ICCS program beneath the wing of New Faculty with the intention to assure its accreditation. 

I had by no means met both of them beforehand, however they merely stated to me, “we really feel you have been unjustly handled by HNC and we need to assist.”

When WASC started its many assaults on New Faculty a number of years later, one in every of their stipulations was to drop all latest applications, so UCS needed to look elsewhere and have been blessed to  create an alliance with Naropa College which bore considerable fruit for plenty of good years.

I used to be honored to obtain the TIKKUN Ethics Award from them additionally.  I used to be happy to appoint him for the Worldwide Sufi Humanities award a number of years in the past, and on the occasion honoring him, we sat at a standard desk and he instructed me how he was present process Alzheimer’s, a illness his mother and father had died of.

Rabbi Lerner was a tough working dedicate of peace and justice and reality.  He will probably be missed.  However his work goes on and is required now greater than ever and that features his advantageous books together with Jewish Renewal and The Left Hand of God.

I thank him for his life and work and integrity and friendship.  And, above all, braveness. 

See Matthew Fox, Confessions: The Making of a Postdenominational Priest, pp. 336, 352.

And Fox, The Hidden Spirituality of Males: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine.And Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Reworking Evil in Soul and Society (Michael was particularly praiseworthy of those final two books of mine.) 

Banner picture: The marriage of Rabbi Michael Lerner and Cat Zavis, 2015. Photograph taken from Tikkun article HERE.

Queries for Contemplation

Have you ever been blessed, instantly or not directly, by Michael Lerner’s works and theology?  Do you acknowledge the spirit of his mentor, Abraham Heshel in his work?  Allow us to all give thanks for his reminiscence.  

Advisable Studying

Trump & The MAGA Motion as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election

Matthew Fox tells us that he had at all times shied away from utilizing the time period “Anti-Christ” as a result of it was so usually used to unfold management and worry. Nevertheless, given at this time’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables on this ebook using the archetype for the reason for justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a second, for analyzing the archetype of the Antichrist, it’s now…Learn this ebook with an open thoughts. Good and evil are actual forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, writer of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.

Confessions: The Making of a Publish-Denominational Priest (Revised/Up to date Version)

Matthew Fox’s stirring autobiography, Confessions, reveals his private, mental, and non secular journey from altar boy, to Dominican priest, to his eventual break with the Vatican. 5 new chapters on this revised and up to date version deliver added perspective in gentle of the writer’s continued journey, and his reflections on the present adjustments happening in church, society and the setting.
“The unfolding story of this irrepressible non secular revolutionary enlivens the thoughts and emboldens the center — should studying for anybody concerned with braveness, creativity, and the way forward for faith.”
—Joanna Macy, writer of World as Lover, World as Self

The Hidden Spirituality of Males: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine

To awaken what Fox calls “the sacred masculine,” he finds ten metaphors, or archetypes, starting from the Inexperienced Man, an historical pagan image of our basic relationship with nature,  to the Religious Warrior….These timeless archetypes can encourage males to pursue their larger calling to hook up with their deepest selves and to reinvent the world.
“Each man on this planet ought to learn this ebook — to not point out each lady who desires to know the struggles, usually unconscious, that form the boys they know.” — Rabbi Michael Lerner, writer of The Left Hand of God