Before there was J Street, or any real pressure in the American Jewish Community for just Israeli policies, there was Rabbi Michael Lerner. Rabbi Lerner, the founder/editor of Tikkun Magazine and The Network of Spiritual Progressives learned in late January that he is suffering from a rare form of lung cancer. (No, he does not smoke!)
Rabbi Lerner, who emerged as an early and leading figure in the Jewish-American peace movement for peace in the middle-East, will undergo surgery tomorrow.
He is asking for our support and help.
Tikkun Magazine is a progressive, Jewish religious magazine that strives to heal spiritual wounds wrought through oppression and injustice.
We are guided in our work by our belief in the principle of solidarity. For us, this principle has spiritual roots in the Jewish commandment to remember that we were all slaves in Egypt; we believe that we are all harmed by oppression directed at any group or individual.
Rabbi Lerner believes that politics should be a spiritual endeavor, and that many progressive movements fall short because they seek to meet their adherents' basic needs for political equality and economic justice, but do not guide them in their deeper search for meaning.
We seek to create that alternative. We are a community of people from many faiths and traditions, called together by TIKKUN magazine and its vision of healing and transforming our world. We include in this call both the outer transformation needed to achieve social justice, ecological sanity, and world peace, and the inner healing needed to foster loving relationships, a generous attitude toward the world and toward others unimpeded by the distortions of our egos. Our movement will encourage a habit of generosity and trust, and the ability to respond to the grandeur of creation with awe, wonder and radical amazement.
Rabbi Lerner helped to found a politically progressive interfaith organization, the Network of Spiritual Progressives, to help our nation's caring majority take back the mantel of spirituality from the right wing. The NSP's co-chairs are Rabbi Lerner, Dr. Cornell West and Sister Joan Chittister. Donations to the NSP have fallen off in recent months because of our economic crisis, leaving it with a staff of one: Rabbi Michael Lerner.
Rabbi Lerner's team of doctors would like him to rest after his surgery. You can help to speed his recovery by joining or donating to the NSP. Rabbi Lerner has posted a list of tasks he needs our assistance withhere.
Help Rabbi Lerner to move forward the NSP's two central campaigns: a Gaza Ceasefire, and a Global Marshall Plan.
And of course, he asks for our best wishes and prayers!