Some thoughts and a prayer after the latest mass killings, this time of elementary school students:

Banning all guns is necessary but NOT sufficient in light of the increasing violence in our society. We need a fundamental transformation as well as banning guns. Otherwise, we will now revert to the...

All the usual suspects are cheering on their respective sides in the latest struggle between Israel and Palestine being fought out at the expense of some Israeli and more Palestinian civilian lives. I've been overwhelmed with sadness at the tragic loss of lives and harm to the bodies of Israelis...

Every time right-wing forces in ascendency manage to grab hold of Congress or the presidency, liberal and progressive commentators, editorialists and blogs are filled with analyses blaming the outcome on the racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, or stupidity of "ordinary Americans." They are usually wrong, and these analyses usually provide grist...

Last year a thousand young people gathered at the Occupy demonstration in NY to celebrate Rosh Hashanah. That will happen again this year in N.Y. and at a service sponsored by Beyt Tikkun synagogue-without-walls in Berkeley, California (at the Pacific School of Religion Sept. 16-18. I'll be co-leading the High...

President Obama is under immense pressure from Netanyahu and his allies in the U.S. Congress, AIPAC, Christian Zionists and Republican candidates for the presidency to give Netanyahu private assurances that if the U.S. strategy to stop Iran from developing the capacity (not the actuality) for nuclear weapons doesn't work, the...

Both Passover and Easter have a message of liberation and hope for the downtrodden of the earth.

And today, it's important to understand that the "downtrodden" -- those who are hurt by the materialism and selfishness built into the very ethos of global capitalism -- are NOT...

Hanukkah was the first recorded national liberation struggle against Greek imperialism, and Christmas celebrates the birth of a hoped for messiah to free the Jewish people from Roman imperialism. The symbolism of a homeless couple who give birth in a manger surrounded by animals because the more comfortable people have...

When my teacher and mentor at the Jewish Theological Seminary Abraham Joshua Heschel told me and others that he had been "praying with his feet" when he participated in the Selma Freedom march in 1965, he confirmed for many a way of overcoming the dichotomy between my religious practice and...

This past weekend, Occupy Wall Street demonstrations were held in over 951 cities in 82 countries as people around the globe joined in an international day of solidarity against the greed and corruption of the 1%.

The media, trying to discredit all the demonstrators, say we don't know what we...

American diplomats acknowledge that they do not have the votes to prevent the General Assembly of the United Nations from recognizing Palestine and granting it some of the rights of member states. The U.S. can block full membership only by exercising its veto in the Security Council, an...

The Jewish tradition has much to say on the killing of our vicious and even murderous enemies.

When Pharaoh's troops were drowning in the Red Sea as they sought to re-enslave or kill the Israelites, the angels began to sing praises (the Hallel prayers: Psalms 113-118). According to the...

In this year of uprising in Egypt what does the Passover story have to say to us? What would liberation throughout the world mean?

For your Seder, here is a Haggadah supplement -- not a replacement. If you don't normally do a...

Ever since the victory over the dictator of Tunisia and the subsequent uprising in Egypt, my email has been flooded with messages from Jews around the world hoping and praying for the victory of the Egyptian people over the cruel Mubarak regime.

Though a small segment of...

The attempted assassination of Congresswoman Giffords and the murder of so many others in Arizona has elicited a number of policy suggestions, from gun control to private protection for elected officials, to banning incitement to violence on websites either directly or more subtly (e.g., Sarah Palin's putting a bull's-eye target...

While making a deal to protect billionaires from $145 billion in taxes that they might otherwise have used to solve pressing domestic problems or to create over 3 million jobs at $30,000/yr., some Democrats and their advisors pointed out that the progressives who dissented from the deal Obama had worked...

Christmas and Hanukkah share a spiritual message: that it is possible to bring light and hope in a world of darkness, oppression and despair. But whereas Christmas focuses on the birth of a single individual whose life and mission was itself supposed to bring liberation, Hanukkah is about a national...

1. Don't let the media frame this as a defeat of progressives. Had Obama embraced and fought for a progressive agenda, even if he had passed none of it, he would have entered the 2010 elections as the champion of the huge idealism of the American people that was elicited...

Shortly before the California Democratic primary in 2008, the San Fransisco Chronicle invited me to write a short article explaining why I, chair of the interfaith Network of Spiritual Progressives, was supporting Barack Obama. Like most other progressive activists, I understood that a president is limited in what...

Now that the Iraq war is supposedly winding down, America needs a period of reflection, repentance and atonement before rushing into more of the same mistakes we've been making globally and domestically. So I'd like to invite my non-Jewish neighbors and friends and allies in the struggle to heal and...