Jesus as Jewish Rabbi – praised/retracted – Efrat Israel

There is perhaps a tempest in a tea pot and Political Correctness Heresy floating about the tea water regarding the present Rabbi of Efrat Israel.

If the Jesus Seminar ever gets a correct time line on Jesus and his divine message mission to earth, many side notes and foot notes might include on that timeline in present times how a rabbi in Isreal and his PC talk about Jesu may have gotten sabatoged by film editors surrounding Jesus and the whole rabbi thing.

Efrat rabbi retracts praise for 'Rabbi Jesus' over Orthodox ire

Defending himself from scathing criticism for a video in which he refers to Jesus as "a model rabbi," a well-respected Anglo rabbi said this week that while his terminology was "inappropriate," the poorly edited video mauled his message. The current incident is the second time this year that Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, the New York-born Orthodox rabbi of Efrat, had to clarify a controversial statement regarding Jewish-Christian relations.

In the video, Riskin says he has been "truly fascinated by the personality of Jesus, whom certainly to myself I have always referred to as Rabbi Jesus" ever since taking a university course about the gospels. "Because I think he is indeed a model rabbi in many counts and he lived the life of a Jewish rabbi in Israel in a very critical time in our history. And I have constantly come back to the study of his personality and his teachings, which are very strongly rooted in Talmudic teachings."

No matter how the PC winds blows today, tomorrow or yesterday on the topic of Jews discussing Jesus and his mission, I am presenting this You Tube video of Rabbi Schlomo Riskin in that he speaks a good talk about Jesus, Judaism and a potential Interfaith dialogue, without calling it interfaith - common ground, between Christians and Jews.

Happy Human Light Holiday - 2009

The so-called War on Christmas did not have much energy this year. Everybody is recycling lights and decorations, those lucky enough to still have their own home. The economy and the massive PR efforts on politics in Health Care legislation has exhausted any patience or tolerance for additional nonsense about the right way to celebrate Christmas – the right talk and the right walk etc. this year.

Indeed Senator Coburn’s recent Prayer on the United States Senate floor to pray for God to strike down Senator Byrd, 92, in a wheelchair, to not make it for a rare One A.M. Senate vote on Healthcare says it all to me about the mean spirited Grinch like love of GOP "Christ-Inane-ity".

The War on Christianity is a self inflicted wound like flagellation. The more you beat yourself, the holier you and your cause becomes? Yeah right.

The War on Christmas is largely I think a time killer on entertainment news which in the Bush years would not dare investigate or report misconduct in government.

Make an artificial enemy out there and blame them for America not being as white or as Christian as it used to be.

Ran into an interesting article about how many foreign born or non-Christians deal with “the December Dilemma” because they do not celebrate their cultural or religious holidays in December.

For many, December's a dilemma

"We definitely had a little bit of anxiety in childhood," Tarin said. But that changed as he grew up and refined his American Muslim persona amid the American atmosphere of diversity and tolerance.

Now, where he and his family live in northern Virginia, "we don't celebrate Christmas. We celebrate our holidays" -- pointing, for example, to Eid al-Fitr after Ramadan and Eid al-Adha after the hajj pilgrimage. But he welcomes the goodwill of the season -- the gift-exchanges with non-Muslim neighbors and the requests from schoolteachers to talk about Muslim holidays.

And

Interfaith couples celebrate their diversity during the Christmas season. Jeff Silver, a certified public accountant who is Jewish, and Shweta Gupta, a dentist who is Hindu, are planning their marriage next year. They will have an interfaith household and said they hope to raise children to understand both of their traditions. At their home in Atlanta, they've set up a holiday tree decorated with Hindu and Jewish ornaments.

And

Non-religious Americans embrace a December "secular holiday" called HumanLight.

Patrick Colucci, vice chair of the HumanLight Committee and member of the New Jersey Humanist Network, said the holiday can uplift "atheist, humanist and nonreligious" people who feel left out and isolated during Christmas.

Which brings me to the Human Light holiday celebrated today December 23. Never heard of it before today. It is a man made holiday by Humanists to make – I won’t say non-believers but perhaps non-conformists – have a day of celebration and gathering in the midst of all the other pagan year end celebrating.

HumanLight

The energy of the diversity of America is sometimes a surprise and delightful.

Happy Human Light Holiday to you all !

(– and that includes Bill O’Reilly and Bill Donahue too. XOXO)

Charter for Compassion - an Interfaith Road?

This past week we observed the fiftieth anniversary of the flight of the Dalai Lama, the head on a Buddhist sect, and his followers out of their native Tibet and into the neighboring country of northern India.

Tibet of course got annexed by China. I will pass on the judgment of the godless giant and talk about interfaith beliefs.

I put a Tibetan chant on above in honor of a faith in exile. I hope that China one day opens its hearts and minds to the Compassion preached by this man.

I believe that there are interfaith approaches which in some ways talk about talking over the back fence like neighbors. I am also reminded of the line from the poetry of Robert Frost, the American poet, about how “good fences make good neighbors”.

In an increasingly religion-less secular world I am listening to this chant, listening to words I do not understand, in Sanskrit, and hoping to gain a little calm in my life to seek the enlightenment spoken so often about in Buddhism. I am not worshipping the Buddha. Few in Buddhism consider their prophet, their main saint, to be a god.

Surfing the tube last night I landed on the PBS show “Bill Moyers Journal” and happened to hear Dr. Karen Armstrong talking about her attempts to form a global “Charter for Compassion” with others who would forge this document that recognizes the “Golden Rule” as the basis of all world religions and put it back into daily use and cognizance globally both in a religious and secular sense.

Armstrong, who taught for a time at London's Leo Baeck rabbinic college, says she has been particularly inspired by the Jewish tradition's emphasis in matters of faith versus practice: "I say that religion isn’t about believing things. It's about what you do. It’s ethical alchemy. It’s about behaving in a way that changes you, that gives you intimations of holiness and sacredness.” She points out that religious fundamentalism is not just a response to but, paradoxically, a product of contemporary culture. "We need to create a new narrative, get out of the rat-run of hatred, chauvinism and defensiveness; and make the authentic voice of religion a power in the world that is conducive to peace." (Wikipedia)

Perhaps the road to interfaith cooperation and beliefs lay in recognition of common grounds.

Instead of talking over the back fence so to speak, perhaps we should be going into each other’s gardens and seeing and feeling and talking about what the next guy with the other religion or beliefs sees and feels as they share in the same visit.

Her use of the word “Compassion” is what triggered my combining these not so differing points of view (?) of the Dalai Lama and Dr. Armstrong.