Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Shabbat Shalom & All My Love
Michael Adam Latz
https://www.facebook.com/michaeladamlatz
Beloved community, a plea from my broken heart:
When I express concern and love for my Israeli loved ones who are sleeping in bomb shelters because of rockets being fired from Hamas in Gaza and Lebanon, I am not diminishing the pain and suffering of Palestinians; I am expressing love and care for people I love and care about, for human beings whose lives are forever entangled in my own.
When I express concern and love for Palestinian loved ones in the West Bank or Gaza whose suffering is enormous and grotesque and unconscionable, I am not challenging Israel's right to exist or be safe and secure; I am expressing love and care for the people I love and care about, for human beings whose lives are forever entangled in my own.
My broken heart has enough space for loving Israelis and loving Palestinians, for loving Jews and loving Muslims, for holding them accountable, for holding myself and my community and the American Jewish Community accountable, for trying to respond to this violent quagmire with more compassion and more love and the expansion of my heart--not the diminishment of it. When has withholding love ever resulted in good for you? For people you love? For the planet?
Shouting at me, correcting me, belittling me, admonishing me for trying to hold more love, more complexity, more humanity, more absurd hope for peace in the face of despair does not invite me in to your pain, your anguish, your rage, your shake, your despair, your hope, your moral commitments. It simply closes an opportunity for us to connect deeply, humanely, lovingly in a world that is desperate for people who see each other's humanity and love each other, fiercely.
What if, instead of doing what we've done to each other for the past generation or two that has not yielded more dignity, more peace, more security, or more human rights, instead of belittling or shaming or blaming or screaming at one another or posturing about the rightness of our position, we instead weep together--LOUDLY, BRAVELY, HOPEFULLY, WITH GENTLENESS AND TENDERNESS--and just see what might happen if we let our hearts open and hold each other as we tremble and try--IMPOSSIBLY--to be better humans together?
Shabbat Shalom & All My Love,
Michael
When I express concern and love for my Israeli loved ones who are sleeping in bomb shelters because of rockets being fired from Hamas in Gaza and Lebanon, I am not diminishing the pain and suffering of Palestinians; I am expressing love and care for people I love and care about, for human beings whose lives are forever entangled in my own.
When I express concern and love for Palestinian loved ones in the West Bank or Gaza whose suffering is enormous and grotesque and unconscionable, I am not challenging Israel's right to exist or be safe and secure; I am expressing love and care for the people I love and care about, for human beings whose lives are forever entangled in my own.
My broken heart has enough space for loving Israelis and loving Palestinians, for loving Jews and loving Muslims, for holding them accountable, for holding myself and my community and the American Jewish Community accountable, for trying to respond to this violent quagmire with more compassion and more love and the expansion of my heart--not the diminishment of it. When has withholding love ever resulted in good for you? For people you love? For the planet?
Shouting at me, correcting me, belittling me, admonishing me for trying to hold more love, more complexity, more humanity, more absurd hope for peace in the face of despair does not invite me in to your pain, your anguish, your rage, your shake, your despair, your hope, your moral commitments. It simply closes an opportunity for us to connect deeply, humanely, lovingly in a world that is desperate for people who see each other's humanity and love each other, fiercely.
What if, instead of doing what we've done to each other for the past generation or two that has not yielded more dignity, more peace, more security, or more human rights, instead of belittling or shaming or blaming or screaming at one another or posturing about the rightness of our position, we instead weep together--LOUDLY, BRAVELY, HOPEFULLY, WITH GENTLENESS AND TENDERNESS--and just see what might happen if we let our hearts open and hold each other as we tremble and try--IMPOSSIBLY--to be better humans together?
Shabbat Shalom & All My Love,
Michael
7 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
