[Dialogue] {Disarmed} Fwd: I want to send you a special blessing (from me, Michael Lerner)

[KroegerD at aol.com]

A Yum Kippur message worth reading:
 
 
Dear Richard, 

This may not be a holy  season for you, but for those of us who observe it, 
tonight, Friday night Sept.  22nd,  is the commencement of ten days of deep 
reflection on our own lives,  who we have been, and who we wish to be. And also a 
time for deep reflection on  our society, religious institutions, politics, 
economics, and culture. On our  web site at www.tikkun.org we have a copy of 
the workbook we put into Tikkun  magazine as a way of helping direct our 
attention at some of the central issues  that each of us needs to face (and I’m sure 
you can add more—in fact, if you  have ideas for how to revise this for next 
year, please send them to me).  

In the Jewish tradition, we say that the “book of life” is open from now  
till the end of Yom Kippur on Monday night, October 2nd. In that book of life  
our fate for the next year gets written and then at the end of Yom Kippur it is 
 sealed. In Tikkun, we’ve transformed that imagery into a deep spiritual 
truth:  we are taking a ten day period to examine what changes are needed in our 
lives,  and how seriously we will take the (full year) process of making those 
changes.  By condensing the period of heightened attention to ten days, we are 
making sure  that we have a time when these issues are totally “front burner”
 in our  consciousness. If we haven’t been able to make any progress in 
self-awareness  and steps toward change in those ten days, then in a certain sense 
our fate is  sealed: we will continue to receive the karmic consequences of 
being the way  that we are at the current moment, and to the extent that we want 
that to  change, this ten day period becomes a spiritual retreat and 
intensive short-term  psychotherapy to work out what we need to be. This is not just 
an intellectual  trip—it’s a real focus on our emotional lives and our 
spiritual lives as well as  our societal lives. 

You don’t have to be Jewish, of course, to use these  days in that way.

And you also don’t have to be Jewish to be part of the  course that I’m 
teaching in Berkeley and San Francisco the weekend of October  13-15: An 
Introduction to a Judaism of Love. It’s my take on Judaism and how its  insights might 
be of value to everyone (not just Jews). I’d particularly  recommend it to 
Christians and Muslims who think about theological issues, to  people who are 
spiritual seekers of some sort, and to Jews who never heard a  version of Judaism 
that made sense to them. So even if this doesn’t particularly  appeal to you, 
I am almost certain you know someone who would be excited enough  about this 
to want to come out here to do it. To register:  www.BeytTikkun.org.

I want to bless you that this coming year be a year  of deep personal 
fulfillment for you, a year of health, a year of love, a year  in which you become 
much more of who you are when you are the fullest embodiment  of the God or 
spiritual energy or loving power of the universe. And I want to  bless all of us 
that in this year we see some major movement toward societal  sanity, 
environmental responsibility, peace and non-violence, social justice,  human rights and 
a flourishing of hope overcoming fear.

Love and  blessings, and as we say in the Jewish world, shana tova u’metuka, 
a good and  sweet year. 

Michael

Rabbi Michael  Lerner
RabbiLerner at tikkun.org 
www.tikkun.org 
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From: Rabbi Michael Lerner <RabbiLerner at tikkun.org>
Subject: I want to send you a special blessing (from me, Michael)
Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2006 15:45:55 -0400 (EDT)
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