Jews are between a rock and a hard place these days. (Hmm.. That sounds like a good chunk of Jewish history!)
However, I’m referring here particularly to the current state of Israel’s political leaders, who seem to express a mostly heartless, militaristic, self-enamored, victim/victimizer view of the world. Unfortunately, the “ordinary Jew in the street,” so to speak, is too often identified, by himself/herself and others, with the politics of the Jewish state.
Alas, this is just as true, and just as unfortunate, of course, with the ordinary American who has been– is– identified by himself or herself and others, with the mostly heartless, militaristic, self-enamored, “exceptionalism” of American politicians and their unworkable foreign policies.
With both Jews and Americans, the challenge for an ordinary person to lead a deeply prosperous life is to, first, go beyond, see beyond these old millennium limiting identities, and then to actively, compassionately challenge the authenticity of such un-natural identities in his or her community, be it near and far. The methods of doing this, of course, comprise all the methods here offered.
Question of the Week
For the past 20 or 30 years or so, a number of us have been meeting on a weekly basis to discuss topics of “Buddhist Methodist” import. Ten years or so ago (unlike most Methodists and a majority of Buddhists, our archives and record keeping are kept more spontaneously than rigorously) we started sending out a “question of the week” prior to our meeting in order to kick off our
discussion. Most of us, find the “discussion starters” to be quite useful, though a few find such a format restrictive. Nevertheless, recently, it was suggested I start posting these questions of the week here on our website., for the growing number of “non-locals” who find this site useful, or at least interesting. I’ll add more questions– both new and from the archives, as time and inclination allow.4/22/18 Question of the Week: Big I and Little I, Ram Dass , Don Juan and Joel Goldsmith
