on april th of this year i was blessed to be among the hundreds who celebrated a new interfaith freedom seder plus the fifty in a philadelphia mosque that mosque had been or church before it became a mosque the synagogue before it became a church the seder was a st in history now for those in our television audience jewish or non jewish who are unfamiliar with the tradition the passover narrative and practice is  passionate commitment to freedom and justice begun in ancient israel for three thousand years the ancient israelites and their jewish descendants as each year in the spring remembered and renewed a timeless liberation movement through the pay saw for passover seder a sacred ritual meal framed by the telling of the story of the ancient liberation of the children of israel from slavery to pharaoh in egypt the ritual freedom seder was known fifty years ago in the wake of dr martin luther king's assassination the ongoing inhumanity of racism in the country the pointless barbarity of vietnam war and the militarism and violence metastasizing throughout american culture the seder consisted mainly of a group of jewish black and white christian activists and was held in the basement of an african american church in washington on april  sixty nine a year after king's assassination as riots erupted after this estimation curfews were established and nearly fourteen thousand dollars federal troops were dispatched dispatched to quell the use of nonviolence and the turmoil fueled by the racism and militarism of the sixty's were drawn intertwined a new text or haga da was created and written to detail the centuries the passover seder traditionally celebrated only moments of jewish liberation but times have changed dramatically in the last fifty years and today social justice related passover texts and services are everywhere advocating queer liberation calls for ending environmental racism stopping police violence pushing for more equitable government funding for public schools greater l g b t q rights calls for jewish palestinian reconciliation greater racial justice our criminal justice system ever got justice pleas to end religious intolerance the list goes on and on countless liberation struggles around the world the freedom savior plus fifty this year was held on king's official birthday and the day after the rd great women's march it was a groundbreaking observance inspiring a fresh reimagining of the passover ritual that link the long history of liberation struggles with other fusions struggles one general overriding scene propelled the author of this center in his racism hatred of foreigners and religious bigotry militarism in home and overseas worsening poverty and overweening materialistic greed that extends to wrecking the earth for the sake of hyper profits and the worsening of official efforts to subjugate women and the l g b t q communities we are thrilled and honored to have the author and host of that original freedom seder and the one held this past april fifty years later as our guest today on the radical imagination what he did has been described as the ring to hug it off from the constraints of its public policy concerning military strategy and disarmament race relations nonviolent action the vietnam war and renewable energy sources he joined in founding the institute for policy studies and was a senior fellow of the peace research is a two he's also the founder and director of the shalom center in philadelphia which sees itself as a prophetic voice in jewish multireligious and american life and strongly supports effort for spiritually rooted social action since one thousand nine hundred you know and he's also been one of the pioneers in the jewish renewal movement to revitalize the the tar chicle intellectual spiritual and political life of the american jewish community and he's also one of the pioneers in creating eco judaism and the importance of ecological understanding in jewish life he's been active since one thousand and sixty nine when he st visited both israel and the west bank gaza in working for peace between israel and the palestinian people through a two state solution to the middle east conflict urging mutual recognition and peace between israel and an independent palestine he is the author of or editor of about twenty books or as his wife rabbi phyllis berman puts it about as many books as the times he's been arrested protesting this show is indebted to him as well as our audience wellknown knows the show is rooted in urging a radical magination a creative life affirming narrative of radical love that is trying to help heal and transform america and the world politically economically intellectually and spiritually welcome rabbi our arthur was go to the radical imagination sorry for that long introduction and could go on and on but thank you so much for being there you've done so much you're doing so much and you're taking time out i know from a hugely busy schedule to visit with us and to all the folks who listen absolutely absolutely and we we can start by talking about what jewish renewal really is about you come into that movement you've been one of the pioneers that movement our audience understand what that is and your place in it what it all means sure so at the deepest level if you think about what judaism has been about t i was told that what i'd done was what the tradition told ms rush of transforming an ancient text into a new place and that's what a spiral does the spiral always goes backward in order to go forward not backward in order to get stuck backward and not just forward like you know walking off a cliff but always drawing on the ancient truth the ancient wisdom in order to be able renewal i mean really new is really crucial name there that we've taken the old traditions for example the biblical tradition much more than the last two thousand years of jewish rabbinical tradition the one thousand years of the the biblical tradition was deeply connected with the others they were farmers  shepherds they knew what it was about two lovely urse to live with the earth not on it and against it with it and with it and they t themselves how to do that in such a way that their own society and all the other living beings and life forms around them could continue to live in a that's a lesson we need now because the last at least the last one hundred and fifty years maybe a little bit more the human race has forgotten or i should say the human race lead some powerful institutions the human race what we call the core carbon barrows who rings is a strong human beings and plagues on the earth at the same fabs as like the original story of the original pharaoh they are wrecking the planet without regard to what it means to live as part of planet earth instead of on its back so their teachings in the torah opens up to it says some of you will say what are we going to eat if th year we can't and it's over just who it is you will have the wisdom to out saying well that face and then i'd say so do you think there's any tinge of science and they think about and they say well i guess it's true farmers know that you do have to let the land rest question of who is the god that the bible really was responding to at the famous burning bush when mos hears the voice of life saying go back and actually take a revolution the overthrow of pharaoh and the liberation of your folks he says they're going to say future tense right again slater's of the ten james version of the bible put it in the present that i am what i am but if you're translating for a king who wants the status quo  listen you need to become a revolutionary then what you need to teach is i will be who i will be i see the universe transforms itself  which means the lord she said i know just do it was so for a long time if i just did it but there was a moment that came to me when i of breath just of breath and of course most of us we think breathing is pronouncing so i ended up feeling that the rule that you're not allowed to pronounce it it's not that you can't that you're not allowed to breath it's there no way to pronounce it all you do is bring so when that came to me that day and then this most powerful most sacred name of god was just reading it were several things that happened for me the st one was will that makes sense at least one of the it's not just human language is every life form on this planet remains they we don't just really in a little bubble on our divine is a king a lord up there and us push lepers round here i i don't think it was ever true but it's certainly not true now when human beings have all kinds of powers that we're realizing to transform the world the screw the world it's destroyed a life on the planet and the teaching is pay attention to the interview breath and that's i to quote a recent secretary of defense in the united states up stuff happens it's like an accident but eric and moses and miriam knew it was no accident because washington and i'm been involved in that as well so you found a kindred soul here again he's reaching out to his christian followers and comrades and trying to make similar points so coming from this prophetic tradition for shalom center is rooted in this prophetic tradition again help our audience understand what that means the  radical love universal radical love so the most immediate connection which reverend barber made at the freedom seder that you mentioned before he was our climactic descendants will rule decently and lovingly because that's what god demands or if you won't change your ways this will power the will itself become a pile of rubble so reverend barber told me he'd been thinking about that as what he wanted to say is the main thing when he spoke at the victims there and then when he began speaking he said what in hebrew we call the of their religious garb of and the hope is the white house that by noon run well and the hope is that people of goodwill around the country and around the world will see this begin to a to work together and not against each other and to resist a system that pits of against each others destroying life in the world and separating families eccentrics over wrought exactly so that  doing civil disobedience probably the majority of the people not new example disobedience but then there are as witnesses and as themselves a presence a presence of well holy spirit looking at a king earth who we in america don't want jayne's we want leaders who are committed to the constitution center concerning the israeli palestinian issues and the in the struggles that that people good well on all sides here have had trying to to deal with these these often polarized traumatized feelings and you raise a number of questions that i think i love you to comment on in the spirit of the freedom seder how should american jews respond to criticisms of israeli government policy specifically by african american and muslim american activists and officials how should american jews respond to words and actions by the trump white house that the speak white nationalism including anti semitism how should american jews respond to claims like trump officials that critics of israel are spouting anti semitism and the th point you make how should american jews respond to the close alliance between the  yahoo government so so how can we learn through our common universal existence to reconcile me the most basic question to ask is the most basic question of the whole bible which is don't make idols what does that mean well it says in the commandments don't heart out something from living reality i think that one piece of living reality is the whole thing you should worship that  so they may have been talking about literally carving something out with scoping a statue or something like that but i think for us it also means don't take a piece talmud they're all living under the roman empire a jew comes to one of the rabbits and the i've got a problem i just bought a wonderful house from a roman and it's got a wonderful case i get it's an article and i have to destroy it what do you think the map places it depends yes the statue was bill's and sculpted to make the pool more beautiful it's just a statue it's lovely but if the pool was built to adore and celebrate and worship the statue then it probably is an idol so the point is your relationship not the thing but your relationship with it then the rabbis tell different story they say that some of them decided to try to find the evil impulse for idolatry because they thought of they could find that they could kill and then there'd be no more i've got to in the world i wanted so they looked and they looked and they hunted and they hunted to try to find it and they finally found it hiding in the holy of holies in the heart of the sacred temple so what does that mean i think what it means is there's a big danger that you could take a what's most sacred and turned it into an art and i worry that people of different  had terrible and there's no way to criticize it or disagree with it and a lot of more jewish institutions the jewish people in the united states at least have been treating israel like an idol you're not allowed to criticize you're not allowed you know it's there and it were simple wealth that did myspace the psalm say what is an id it has hands but can't touch it has a mouth but can't read it has ears but can't listen it is dead and those who make it and it took ten people to be possible to transform a society below ten hopeless but if you had ten people who could stick together for decency then there was a good when you're sometimes are people who are at a place where the conversation is extremely limited i mean i few weeks ago i had rabbi weiss of the tory carta on and you probably know him or a certain you know those organizations who are vehemently militantly on non violently anti zionist now very very holy and charming wonderful knowledgeable fellow as  with the women's movement that the jews some jews took a very in a very hard way so how do you bring people back from those traumatized polarized positions  damage than maybe any other state in the world will go that's a great that's a very very important point so when it becomes all about israel bashing then you've got a sort of hold back a little bit and see what's going on there biblical messages that you've been telling us here why doesn't that happen why why isn't that part of the discussion well because the pentagon very cleverly i wouldn't say wisely but cleverly figured out how to put in just about every congressional district in the united states you know a place of jobs so then to do would see more mehlman talked about and reconvert the military system to civilian system means that every congressional member has to face how do i get across this press was i'm not just going to leap into it how do i actually do reconversion so that people come out with jobs on the other side we're facing that now with the whole question of the green new deal and the green deal is actually very smart about it i don't know how without also meeting the true the honorable decent needs of the people who are now coal miners and desperate as they see the coal mines disappearing to have return version transformation transition that has to be a just transition so one hundred things i love that the green new deal proposals is that they were built in there they understood that kinds of the economy you have to have those bridges and they're building it in and in fact that means there would be jobs so you know there were two different elements taking the military one is the people who make literally tens of billions of dollars from killing like on the planet from heating scorching i never thought about global warming warming is a pleasant world we're it's will scorching you know global burning that we're dealing with not go will warming so there are people who are making tens of billions of dollars off doing that and they don't wan we're going to need to change our whole business structure and we will do it step by step we would change it i said i was saying that in they went publicly logging and  climb like this in the long run and not in this case not so long run anymore what immoral is deadly literally deadly and what model is like  giving and we are late to learning that lesson and beginning so i said there were two different opposition the other one is from people who are desperate they're not making billions and billions they're barely hanging on with their fingernails and they're frightened that any change in our basis autonomy will leave them pulling off the cliff with their fingernails torn off and that's got to be addressed it's got to be addressed ethically poor ethical we need and it's got to be addressed for practical political reasons without those folks we can't make that change and that's why i appreciate the green new deal so much i also love it because the whole teaching of the bible of the bed whole notion of the th year when the earth gets to rest and by the way that's  you don't let the earth rest sounds to me just exactly like a climate scientist talking today about it what happens if we don't let the or threats from each acting more and more and more and more c o two it's in the ocean shepherds god that you can't separate ecological sanity from social justice you they are intertwined they were then and they are now and let the ecosystem collapse absolutely and ours is so as you look back five thousand and sixty years we both in the sense of we're through some of the struggles and many struggles of the sixt are you more confident that the younger progressives today are getting some of the things that perhaps our generation didn't get well i think they are and i think they are also drawing on to each other it was a wonderful conversation and i think some exciting ideas grew out of it so so i'm very hopeful you know there's this great line it's the prophet to turn the hearts of the parents to the children and the hearts of the children to the parents lest i come and smite the earth with utter destruction so this is already a call poor young folk and old folks who listen to each other to pay attention to each other the life experience that some of us have a the old system collapses we're not going to have to live in this world that either we fix now within the next dozen years or it is going to tear us all i think she's eighty six dollars now so she is one of the founders of the sun are the the inspiration for the sunshine movement of the young young people you're talking about so it's a it's a terrific a mix of the old and young life yeah so so tell us unfortunately i'm not going to be able make it for june th i have a meeting with actually people union theological and jim gilligan and who but tell us some of your upcoming events and how we can get in touch with you we were down to our last minute there to hear what the shalom center's web site hold the shalom report that we could out and that's where you were quoting from from the book for i was so i welcome people doing that and we will have a number of things one thing we're getting to plan spirituality grew out of that but that's what they were rooted in the beginning i wrote a book on thing years ago both seasons of our joy in which i talked about how they were all really rooted in the in the earth the seasons and we were thinking seriously about how to build a series of actions that we take all of the festival as moments so we've done that with passover like how to take them all as moments of reason that protection and healing of the earth from the climate crisis and from that let's we'll going to be doing that and all things come around my my wife