The Wisest People Are Those Who Learn From Everyone
Living Life Loving Living
About Rabbi Sandra Lawson whose post inspired this big bowl of sweet and sour shit stew that was too long for Threads’ algorithm. Rabbi Lawson, a queer black woman, is a veteran and scholar ordained Reconstructionist. Nowhere in her work that I read does she make any statement, pro or con, about the Zionist Project in Occupied Palestine and I only recall her referring to Israel as a “foreign country”
Rabbi Sandra doesn’t promote Jewish supremacism at all, but teaches the humanist view point of service to Tikkun Olam and spiritual growth, as evidenced by this thread. She recognizes the problem, but stays above it by encouraging disagreement for the sake of heaven. My Rabbi, Louis Binstock, addressed it similarly, taking a wait and see position up through the early 70’s when we parted ways, promoting spiritual growth and omnistic embrace of other creeds, loyal to the US Constitution principles rooted in the Haudenosaunee Confederation Great Law of Peace.
UPDATE: Today , April 24, 2025, Ms. Sandra Lawson defrocked herself in my eye, refusing to “disagree for Heaven’s sake” as she had preached when I posted this comment in response to her Earth Day message, complaining about blaming random jews for the Zionist state’s atrocities being (horrors!) Anti-semitic.
You're not a "random Jew" , Rabbi. You are failing your responsibility to speak out passionately against the chauvinistic militant nationalism, Jewish supremacy and genocidal psychopathy being perpetrated by the Iron Wall mob of fascist terrorists (einstein's characterization) in our ancestral lands.
She came at me angrily, defending her right to say what she said with a who are you to question me sort of power leveling appeal to authority and then blocked me when I said i had been following her for weeks and observed her “zio-lite” avoidance of direct condemnation. Rather than respond, she blocked me. I had a long conversation about it with the Reconstructionist Reform press office and she will forward my concerns to a rabbi. Without standing up for the innocent victims of Zionist warmongering, no Christian or Jewish clergy person will be able to win my respect. This is one matter where there can be no disagreement. The genocide must stop.
Has social media trained us to react, not reflect? Jewish wisdom teaches: “Who is wise? One who learns from everyone.” (Pirkei Avot 4:1)We need more curiosity, less certainty—more machloket l’shem shamayim, disagreement for the sake of heaven.
Chag Sameyach , Rabbi. Shalom aleichem. I'm a Kohen born for Gershom, educated by Louie Binstock (HUC/JIR/ACJ) and studied with the Chabad rebbe's nephew, Lazar Rivkin in college, so being Pesach and all, this is going to be a bit of a megilla. I sang on Temple Sholom’s bima in the premier of Sing Unto God
History is very messy when people and events are studied closely through the haze of disinformation. The Patriarchs were nomadic merchants, not lords of kingdoms and they weren't saints either. We're deliberately made imperfect so that our souls can learn to overcome challenges in our transit through the material plane and back to the "Land of Eternal Life"
Judah has always messed things up for Israel and the backsliders have always brought the tsooris on themselves, particularly the Rothschild Khazerian Trumpledor-Jabotinsky - Netanyahu Iron Wall mob; not occultists, but sexual predators, usurers and war profiteers. Three Oaths prohibits doing it, Torah forbids the behavior and Resolution 181 was never ratified. No deep reflection is required to understand that the state has no legal or moral standing.
What to do about it before Hashem cashes in their chips is what needs very deep, collective thinking. Are we as a people, bound by nothing more than a commitment to uphold shema, v'ahavta and the ten commandments, going to stand idly by while our cousins kill our ancestors' neighbors? Will this be blessed or cursed on the last day?
Since Columbus introduced Syphilis and Small Pox to the Americas, Jews, WASPs and Catholics have created what Einstein called the "Measles of Mankind" that to me , as a Life Scientist, looks more like Herpes or a skin cancer spanning the globe with hegemonic church/state fiefdoms built on cemented over wetlands , plowed under prairies and clear cut forests. Religious nationalism of the three Abrahamic faiths has kept the world in a state of war for over 1500 years. Humanity will not survive this century if we don’t stop it in this decade.
The leaders of our society lionize stupidity while stigmatizing intelligence, passed inter-generationally by fear conditioning children to obey false authorities. This kills their Nefesh, making them act out on yetzer hara, reflexively responding to stimuli in ways their instincts are telling them not to.
We need to teach our children how tune into Shechinah and YHVH, to learn what their voices feel like on the Ruach Hakodesh. Believing in God without knowing its divine presence while denying the Goddess kills the Nefesh completely; unable to feel the mother's hands (gravity) holding us to her breast and the father's hand on our hearts (sunshine) as that warm gooseflesh feeling when you have found an epiphanous moment of truth and peace. God in us is the energy that turns carbon and water into living, sentient beings.
Jews need to be taught that Yeshua ben Yusuf was a Ba'al Shem Tov whose teachings deserve their place with Hillel and Akiva and Christians need to learn that Lord YHVH is king of this world. It is only when we are AT ONE with ourselves that we can even atone for wrongs we have done to others.
Some of my generation chose spirit over might. I sang with Debbie Freidman at the premiere of Sing Unto God in Temple Sholom and I sang with Doug Mishkin and Danny Syme at the UN to raise awareness for Abie Nathan and get him out of the NJ dock. Instead of becoming assimilated into the butterscotch pudding bowl of the owner class, we brought back some of the ritual and ceremony to strengthen our connectedness to the infinite life force rather than give our beings up to the state. It is my honor to have so much chochma, binah and da'as stuffed in a yiddishe kopf with clean hands, strong heart and clear eyes, ready to serve all my relatives in these very interesting times.