Quote of the Week 235 - Prayer and Responsibility

We cannot merely pray to You, O God, to end war;

For we know that You have made the world in a way

That man must find his own path to peace

Within himself and with his neighbor.

We cannot merely pray to You, O God, to end starvation;

For you have already given us the resources

With which to feed the entire world

If we would only use them wisely.

We cannot merely pray to You, O God,

To root out prejudice,

For You have already given us eyes

With which to see the good in all men

If we would only use them rightly.

We cannot merely pray to You, O God, to end despair,

For You have already given us the power

To clear away slums and to give hope

If we would only use our power justly.

We cannot merely pray to You, O God, to end disease,

For you have already given us great minds with which

To search out cures and healing,

If we would only use them constructively.

Therefore we pray to You instead, O God,

For strength, determination, and willpower,

To do instead of just to pray,

To become instead of merely to wish.

--Rabbi Jack Riemer, quoted in When Bad Things Happen to Good People by Rabbi Harold S. Kushner

Quote of the Week 234 - The Heart as Cremation Ground

Of course, it hurts to become yourself.

Birth hurts, death hurts.

But this struggle is God,

whose temple is the cremation ground.

Constant struggle – that is your offering,

what is sacred, what is God’s.

Constant defeat doesn’t mean anything.

Light your little name and its hopes on fire,

make of your heart a cremation ground,

and let Mother dance there.

--from a free translation and interpretation of Swami Vivekananda’s poem “And Let Shyama Dance There” by Peter Schneidre (Hiranyagarbha)

Quote of the Week 233 - The Demands of Judaism

Judaism demands that man should love both God and mankind. This is the way of compassion, and it not only regulates our encounter with our fellow beings, created in the image of God, but it also defines our attitude to God.

--Bill Heilbronn, from The Courage of Uncertainty; A Jewish View of the Continuing Evolution of Faith in the Fields of Religion and Science

Jewish Raja Yoga, Torah Yoga, Jewish Meditation and Hebrew Chanting/Kirtan This Labor Day Weekend at Limmud Atlanta/Southeast

Limmud Atlanta/Southeast This Labor Day Weekend

 

This coming Labor Day Weekend, at the Limmud Southeast weekend retreat in the North Georgia Mountains, I will be teaching a session on Jewish Raja Yoga, and I will be collaborating with Mitch Cohen to conduct a Shabbat morning series starting with Torah Yoga, followed by Jewish Yoga Meditation, and ending with Hebrew Chanting/Kirtan.

 

Limmud is a great experience. This will be my third. Check it out. It is not too late to register.

 

For more information, go to http://www.limmudse.org

Quote of the Week 232 - The Current of Life

And so, for the first time in my life perhaps, I took the lamp and, leaving the zone of everyday occupations and relationships where everything seems clear, I went down into my inmost self, to the deep abyss whence I feel dimly that my power of action emanates. But as I moved further and further away from the conventional certainties by which social life is superficially illuminated, I became aware that I was losing contact with myself. At each step of the descent a new person was disclosed within me of whose name I was no longer sure, and who no longer obeyed me. And when I had to stop my exploration because the path faded from beneath my steps, I found a bottomless abyss at my feet, and out of it came – arising I know not from where – the current which I dare to call my life.

--Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Quote of the Week 231 - Explosions of Myth

New images of man do not spring from Policy Research reports. All cultures begin in explosions of myth in the minds of prophets, mystics, visionary scientists, artists, and crazies.

--William Irwin Thompson