About Humanity

"A chosen people is the opposite of a master race, first, because it is not a race but a covenant; second because it exists to serve God, not to master others. A master race worships itself, a chosen people worships something beyond itself. A master race believes it has rights; a chosen people knows only that it has responsibilities." Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Not in God's Name, Schocken, New York. 2015.

As someone who does not identify as a chosen people or part of a master race, I ruminate about how to respond to the world, particularly that part of the world I cannot endorse. So I am comforted by the people who have taken on ministry and who feel responsible enough to care for community.

How do I act on a feeling of responsibility without assuming that I know what other people should do, or what we should do? It's very easy to slip into a political preaching that suggests I know, or that my being a good example means that others should follow it. Or worse yet, create a new ideology, which, if successful and influential, would uncover unintended consequences.

The eternal problem for me is, when does the power I have to take responsibility for the world and to act on it - become a power that oppresses another?

Many people who are privileged enough to have the time to think on this have offered good ideas on how we can survive the turmoil of violence and fear. Humanity has a voice. It doesn't have to be a single voice, and clearly it isn't, but I look for the cause of the causes of our problems. Perhaps the original cry for help before we engage in diversions that take us away from our brothers and sisters.

On good days I remember there are no solutions, which does not excuse me from struggling with the questions. I am part of an interdependent web of existence which is a gift and a burden.

Beyond Politics of Anger - Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

"Hope is not optimism. It begins with a candid acknowledgment on all sides of how bad things actually are." So says Rabbi Jonathan Sacks after the election of Trump.

Sometimes I feel I am drowning in the weight of hopelessness, a global system that has thrown humanity under the economic bus. But we need a prophetic voice that looks beyond this moment to a future we can invest in.

Jonathan Sacks provides a wisdom that brings us to where we are now and reminds us of a way through."We need a new economics of capitalism with a human face."

This is the crux of leadership - to not choose contempt for humanity, to not sink into a worship of power that has been extracted from humanity, to not strip the tears, pain and flesh off the world and lock up the gold.

"We have seen bankers and corporate executives behaving outrageously, awarding themselves vast payments while the human cost has been borne by those who can afford it least. We have heard free-market economics invoked as a mantra in total oblivion to the pain and loss that come with the global economy. We have acted as if markets can function without morals, international corporations without social responsibility, and economic systems without regard to their effect on the people left stranded by the shifting tide. We who are grandparents know only too well that life is harder for our children than it was for us, and for our grandchildren it will be harder still." (Jonathan Sacks)

Amen.