joshua nelson the kosher gospel singers so welcome once again to the radical imagination i'm your host jim braddock i'm a sociologist who's taught the john jay college and university here in new york jews have grappled throughout their history with the need to combine jewish nationalism with universal humanism other peoples in history of course of face similar challenges but the jewish historical experience has been especially troublesome one accentuating this dilemma the struggle seems more intense than ever with the recent israeli government's decision to enact  law reaffirming israel's status as a jewish state damaging the sense of equality felt by israel through christian and muslim citizens in two thousand and seventeen the government withdrew from an agreement that would have created and then gala tarion prayer area at the western wall and followed that with a proposition for a strict conversion law that would impinge on the right of non orthodox jews in addition this summer it passed a law that denies equal rights to same sex couples yuri avnery a prominent voice of israeli descent and the founder of the hard core israeli peace movement b shalom the peace bloc represents the oppositional view arguing that the national level of law was clearly semi fascist and narry died just this past week at age ninety four as he planned to attend a demonstration led by the druze community against a nation state law in tel aviv on aug fifteenth that protest by the way grew up to one hundred thousand people and one was and was one of the biggest israeli protest in years years ago he wrote that he and his friends had asked the israeli supreme court to change the nationality entry on  identity cards from jewish to israeli the court refused stating that there was no israeli nation in this column he cited israel's one point eight million strong arab minority which makes of twenty one percent of the population as well as hundreds of thousands of european non jews who emigrated from the former soviet union with the jewish relatives so is it an israeli nation  course there is is there a jewish nation of course there isn't the democratic and the gala tarion dimensions of the jewish state of israel seems to be testing itself to its limits it's been the test and ongoing struggle for much of jewish history how should orthodoxy be respected and yet not allowed to become the politics of a radical minority which alienates millions of jews and non jews worldwide how can modern man regain a personal weapons of god how can jews of the new era fuse national pride and religious affiliation with a dedication to human progress worldly culture and morality rab abraham joshua heschel best exemplified this creative dynamism in the stream of modern jewish thought through his writings and activism in the civil rights and peace movement of the one nine hundred sixty s and in the jewish christian dialogue as hassle famously put it when i march in selma my feet are praying he argues that we need to shock modern jews and people all over the world out of their complacency recovering biblical faith as an inward dynamic process and make it into a universally accessible feeling of the experience of the sublime feeling the all and wonder human soul transcendence that seems to be fast fading from our contemporary secular world consciousness it's about who will stand in the breach as a reverend william barber of the poor people's movement would put it it's about having a radical imagination the upcoming jewish holidays of russia shown on young kapoor will be commemorated in that spirit in tradition september tenth and seven our most sublime radical imagination to have a unique brother and sister rabbinic team on the show today who founded the site synagogue congregation and will be leading the services there they have been called the first in american jewish history and proudly evoke the first spiritual leadership team of moses miriam also a brother and sister nationally recognized for their groundbreaking work in the field of interfaith relations particularly with blacks and jews been hailed for the dynamic efforts and outreach and reaching an affiliated jews there innovations in emerging worship and their skill in inspiring preaching and teaching coupled with the suzy there's a lot to cover and but before we meet rabbis perry and leah berkowitz here's a brief clip of cornel west and rabbi michael lerner discussing black he was relations on the charlie rose show we back in a few minutes to talk with perry and we begin with the conflict between jews and blacks in america the tension in the united states has been growing more and more over the last few years from events like the crown heights riots to the dissension over issues like affirmative action and zionism and black separatism the two groups have found themselves at odds cornell west is the author of race matters michael lerner is the founding editor of the magazine they met over a period of six years with a tape recorder between them to try to get to the heart of the divisive involves the issues that separate blacks and jews in our country the results of their conversations appear in this book jews and black let the healing begin i am pleased to have them here to talk about what they discovered in their dialogue welcome great to have you friend here how did this begin i mean whose idea was this cornell to say we need to talk and  dialogue may come some idea or i think there is much michael lerner's idea he invited me based on advice of the late great michael harrington actually to come and speak at a conference one thing eighty nine i think it was and from there we became good friends and decided that if we were going to focus on social misery in america and try to transform the situation transform it into a more  egalitarian distribution of wealth and power and resources that we had to highlight two groups that have served as solid pillars for progressive politics in america the name the jewish americans and that african americans and so the dialogue began six years ago is a result in the tape recording began six years ago that really matters and i remember one night you and i were having dinner is that right here somewhere on a west side and you said i got to go up because we're going to tape s and i was always very scared in my junior high school you my first year in junior high to go to school because there were these black kids who were kept on coming up to you and saying got a nickel and if you didn't have it you got slugged and in the book i was in i was telling cornell that in cornell is that hey i was that guy and then cornell told that he had been into that for a certain amount of time in his in his life in jail he had gotten into the church and through the church and jesus his understanding of jesus he had really had a transformative experience and gone in a very different direction you know for me at that point in my life i was hoping you know like when i was that kid i was hoping that those kids who were attacking me could just be locked up for life and i never had the vision of the possibility of change and when i got to know cornell west one of the most principled and intelligent and loving people i've ever met and for him to say to me i was that guy really brought home to me in a very deep level the kinds of transformations that are possible number one and number two the limited ways in which people view each other through a particular form of behavior that might be offensive but to not see the full human being behind that behavior and what they have been going on to lead to it and what might lead to transformation so when i heard that from cornell that was an incredible moment for me i learned a lot of other things in the course of course of these dialogues but to really get that human beings are not fit and that even when there are moments of anger or things that you don't like that you shouldn't like that are morally incorrect that that person that there's a human being there who is embodies the spirit of god and who can be transformed because the spirit of god is that transformative energy in the world i got it through through this encounter and made a deep and profound impact and i think this is personal dimension is very important even as we talk about the various structures of domination in various operations of power in our economy and the nation state that we're living at a time in which we're seeing the political aeration the vicious put down lack of respect relative paucity of fair mindedness and to have a relationship with companionship and a friendship that not only cuts across racial lines but with the in our communities as well as across our communities is a way of trying to sustain some sense of hope at a moment in which it seems as if simply talk seriously about the levels of unemployment and underemployment very important the inadequate health care the unavailable child care and so forth but also to talk about relations that are very important trying to highlight values of integrity and character let me talk about so well as to two important ideas welcome land wonderful to be here harry to the radical imagination thank you so much for being here i can't thank you enough and i'm just what you're attempting to do here in getting reverend barber to be at russia's sauna services is monumental it's historical tent congratulate two nuff i think it's so important and i want to give you the opportunity to tell our audience more of how this came to be and what you're trying to accomplish and again thank you so much for being here thank you for having us it's a pleasure to be our services or very innovative you know many of the roots of it go back to our upbringing we come from a home where our father was a very very noted rabbinic leader international jewish leader as well and one of the things that he did in his career was had a forum known as the dialogue form in which internationally renowned personalities came to this and he and the person much like were doing had a high conversation not on foolish or trivial topics but on topics that were of import and this five hundred fifty internationally renowned personalities are among those people were many leading civil rights individuals and leaders martin luther king andrew young abernathy and so on and so on and so we grew up in a home where these people came into the home where we met them where we related to them i remember  as a young child meeting dr king dr king gave me his own private blessing and we had a profound little encounter and tone together which is something i always keep and said we want to create a synagogue that had great relevance to the human condition to human issues and that utilize the particularities of the jewish tradition in jewish as one segment we've utilize these services to seek to strengthen the black jewish relationship and in recent years it has somewhat faded from the from the level of what it jewish african americans and non jewish eric and who come to the service because the service has this universal quality to it then people say i would miss the full season without coming to russia sharing or not jewish because they mean so event marking the birthday of martin luther king that was held the fifth avenue presbyterian church dr barber was the keynote speaker i offered a bible reading dr barber and i met there and he said look we have to get together we have to work together and i said i agree with you and i said i want you to come on the right to shine in the spirit must pretend to come to our services which are held at seventy ninth lexington avenue the sanctuary there we leased space and he just again is much demand but he said i understand you're not a regular ordinary rabbi yes so that and therefore you're someone that i want to connect with and therefore i want to come to you and it was a case of finding the time and making booking because he he he really is up and down the length and breadth of  authentic jewish tradition i think that's one of the things that we've worked hard to do and terms of your introduction mainly the melding of universalism and particularism which again was so emblematic of you think about how the whole all of you says in the bible all my bones shall praise you so therefore even your feet can be praying you can pray when you eat you can pray in all kinds of ways and i think also jim  that we have to we've had this discussion over time and this is something that i know dr barbara has mention i've heard on many occasion reverend al sharpton talk about that namely that so many of the civil rights leaders inspiration you need the energy you need the spiritual hope that it's not an easy task doing this kind of loop it's an uphill battle there's lots of frustrations and people often want to throw up their hands it's the spiritual tradition andrew young or jesse jackson or how we're thurman or bayard rustin or a song or sharpton all of them are coming out of that spiritual tradition that is not the spirituality that goes into windows there and then three because you have to be able to have the outside world look in and for you to be able to look out into the outside world she did jewish tradition has its monastic part but i would say that's not the major part you cannot navel gazing you must care about the other that's why spirituality twofold one is the spirituality gives you the strength to face the challenges of life when you feel you're all spent you know how you're going to go on that's what gives you that and the other hand is what the tradition teaches it says in the torah more than any other commandment it says thirty six times to love the stranger eighteen in jewish numerology the letters of the hebrew alphabet equal a number if you have like allah which is like a swan so eighteen equals high which means life double twice life is thirty six it is thirty six times to love the stranger that means you not only give yourself like when you love the stranger when you give someone else life but and therefore most young people would not say that that's what it says so that's one of the only when you're steeped in jewish tradition do you know this is one of the most important commandments repeated so many times more than anything else what that means is you have to care when someone else is suffering you have to care when there's poor people you have to care when people are starving when so therefore that is what our tradition teaches us so that's what comes out of the depths of the meanings of the holy days are distorted they are made trivial they are made trivial he asked most people what is russia china they'll say oh you know it's like time for honey cake or take the law which is like honey candy we can is from have a sweet year i say t we have a sweet year yet when you have to be worth how someone else going to have a sweet year a lot of people are not going to have a sweet year with all the difficulty in the world it's not just eating the honey but it's bringing the honey to the world to sweeten all the p negativity that's in the world and try to in a practical way change it so for most people the russian is the honey cake the sweet honey candy getting together with family getting new clothing seen your friends but it loses what the depth of the day is about that already five years when our services are sort of what the meaning this is the new year for the whole world and it's the birth of the human being so this is a time for and then we leave we start with russia shine and we go into yom kippur which is this whole ten days from russia to is a time of moral inventory not only people will know the personal moral inventory but the moral inventory about what's going on in the world and that's why we're having dr reverend barber to come to speak about the idea that we have to make create a moral accounting and we need to create a moral focus all evolution as evolution yes a revolution of love in practical terms the idea of that justice is love with its sleaze rolled up it's not just you love people like the nice sentiment but it's it's love and justice and in order to love somebody you have to see that they are cared for and their needs are met and they're heard and where do you get limited to the bible for the hebrew bible the jewish scriptures the total is the five which is not only the five books of moses but also the prophets and the writings known as the tanakh is the acronym in hebrew and that is you know if you pick up any bible even bibles that contain the new testament the first part of the bible is all of those sections the torah the five books of moses the prophets and then the writings but in jewish terms our scriptures are not only the the tanakh but in addition the entire millennial tradition the what's called the oral torah the oral teachings said i learned the meaning of love by being of all places in a in an in a bar and seeing to non jewish peasants having a drink there getting a little tipsy in the first one says to the second tell me do you love me the second says of course i love you the first one says do you really love me second one says of course i really love you in the first one says do you know what pains me do you know what i lack and the second one says no idea to which the first says well if you love me how can you not know what pains me said the rabbi the meaning of love is to know the pain and the lack of an other and to respond to it and that is like really what in so many ways the jewish tradition has sought to do to take the notion of love your neighbor as yourself love the stranger and then say let's not just make this a lovely ideal but let's put this in practical terms how do we do this where do we do this when do we do this and so that's where you know we were talking about how we are arguing and talking over each other this is so much classic jewish approach that you then take the ideal and you expanded you you try to exegete it you get you deep in it and you go into it to make it a very very my street but then the rabbi said well let's talk about how do we do that how do we do this and by the way would you hear so much of those sentiments within gospel music right of course  means not law but means the path the way so this is it the question is how do we take these ideas ideas and ideals and make them away a path of living so that's why in jewish tradition i'm just wanted to add what you were saying  tells you very concrete ways you to give ten percent of your income to charity and the word charity for it's a duck and he does not mean like charity like caritas but let's say in christianity which mean would be more like love but what what's a when you're supposed to leave the part of your of the fields left on untaken to the poor people could come and take the poor not that they have to come grovel but it's there for them to you know so all of these ideas and ideals were conquered ties the best sense in the jewish tradition because we are i would say one of the most practical traditions rather saying this is not something you just ok and you have now you have christian leader coming right you actually so you were showing all of these ideals it the intellectuals and they said this is what we have to do all of the intellectual work but they sought to also bring in the hard work and the devotional life now professor heschel comes from and he got from that tradition he came from descendent of some of the greatest leaders of that tradition it was in his bloodstream and it was in his d n a and so when he came from warsaw where he grew up and he moved to the united states he was looking for the kind of synagogues that had that kind of intense joy and intense piety and devotion and seeking to connect to the divine yeah he only found that type of thing he said in the black church dot com that's holy day because it's a holy day that's the high holy only a services dot com that will give you all the information that you need to know to come so again monday september tenth here in manhattan coming here d barber come in here joshua nelson be enthused be inspired get ready for the journey for the journey home to hear the blowing of the rams farm the chauffeur to waking you to what is going on in the world and what you have to do about it and you are saying here's something about very interesting about blowing one of the in the arrow right part in order of tools for the show for to be effective you start with the now chauffeurs a large rams harun and you when you blow it you blow it at the narrow and  continually goes wider till it gets to a very white point in order for it to be effective you must start at the narrow and the point is you store with your particularity we can we start with who i am right with my energy giving my energy in order to make to have the there's no it's not like it's a trumpet so it's just you have to come give your own energy there's no read i guess that was be the word for it therefore you have to take it breath within in order to then bring the breath out which is another way of saying you have to be strong in who you are and that's what these services and judaism teaches us we have to be steeped in our own spirituality in who i am as an individual and as a people and as a religion but you know remain there point and you open wide to the universal it will not work unless you start from whom you are who i am authentically bringing all who i am i have to bring my very lead in this my very jewish very rabbi innes my very humanness i'm different than you you're different than me that's a great take away from russia china which today is that that is the day of the birth of the world and of the birth of the human being we're all the same yet we're all different so i have to take my different miss my uniqueness my particulary i start with the narrow with who i am but i don't end there you keep get wider and wider and wider for the sound to go out and to waken the whole world i have to make it go why and care about the whole world and wake up the whole world but i start there and that and you open it open it wide that's how the sound will come out i can start if i would take the chauffeur for the why then which is so c universal it of the air the sound will never come through it can only come through that i start with who i am what you were saying before with all of these people with part of the civil rights movement came out of the faith based  want to make this even a little more person because i'm hearing you say this i don't want you to to mention as i hear you i feel and hear your mother who just passed away recently and i'm just moved by i knew i knew her and loved her as everybody did who ever met her and i just as you were speaking i felt her presence and speaking through you so i just wanted to mention that we're  to do another show sure has he's a remarkable woman and i just want to thank you mentioned and can i just add something even you mention my mother she was an intensely jewish woman and intensely human woman i had a wonderful teacher of theology rabbi professor eugene bohr with seized to say there's some people who want to make a division between the jew and the human being and he said i prefer to talk about the being being and that is the melding again of one's jewishness and one's humanity to discover the jewel in the human and the human in the jew and that's part of what somebody like professor  my teachers elie weisel saw and to do to try and meld together the jewish and the human and that's what these services which again or on monday september tenth here a minute at the sanctuary in seventy nine to lexington are seeking to do and are seeing to reach people to bring to them passion that was the point that hashem was trying to make about the black church it brought in passion he said too many synagogue suffer from a cold their low places he went to all three denominating virtually including fine on the passion ration that you found in the black church so we say we want to take that exhilaration and bring it into a jewish spirit and dynamism which is found in that tradition and found this well in like the bat this tradition we meld them together i told dr barber wait til you see what this is other people who've come whether it was dr forbes mrs forbes lots of people have since like nothing they've ever seen through and i say to your viewers they should come it's like nothing they've ever seen or experience and gives them those vitamins for the whole year you know we're living in a culture now we're living in a country now where there's so much moral crisis going on feel what we're saying we can't go through what my teacher of mine when i was a little girl would say mumbojumbo of mal being words we have to live the words and that's why also at our services we have all kinds of modelling these you have dancing in the middle of the services people say to me i can't believe that all of a sudden me alone i start to dance and i go dancing down the aisle and i said no but this is how at that moment i feel that's how i'm praying so i pray it's a heschel idea of praying with my feet was really  whole congregation get up and dance but now and then and then i was going it just starts with russia seana and right ten days where we work on ourselves with the moral introspection we have to be concerned with what are we what's going on inside of us you know what's going on inside outside of the world and then the culminate on yom keep poor which we also invite people to sometimes the one thing is you which is on wednesday september nineteenth and it's that's a ten am in the morning in the morning service goes till around three o'clock at around three o'clock we have a social justice speaker this is the point i wanted to say we're probably going to either have it on on gun violence or on poverty and the idea of taking care of the poor we're not sure whether we're ok let me ask you this i wanted this all right go for people say when i want to know when the services and i go to racy ok and i go ballistic and i say no no no the service is all day continuous you know because when we have the speaker of social justice that's examination and so on getting that internal in addition to get out there in the streets support the poor people's campaign right in an activist way because as you all we all know there's a lot to to fighting for justice not just in demonstrations but organizing people and how do we reach more jews and others to do this so first of all and answer the last part of your question that's why we're on this program where we are we are  seeking to reach other people and we deputize every viewer to be an ambassador to go out tell about these services to bring people in this is also a battle against indifference this is one of the great problems in the jewish community  it's why why is that become well such a problem well they become why have we become too successful well morally why is it here again because they have that delicate balance between the universal in the particular that we have to embrace both if we hold on only to one end and not the other something will be wrong now or you know part of the part of the trade off with enlightenment and all the values of enlightenment that we've embraced is some of the spiritual values of our tradition that have fallen by the wayside when this is a battle against indifference it's a battle against people who say you just don't care in answer to question how to do this you know someone said use the the the image of the body there are people who are the mouth of the body the ears of the body the feet of the body the arms of the body so we view our task as religious leaders particularly to create the type of environment and to create inspiration enthusiasm education that is without that you're not going to get people out on the ari and that that is one of the most vital things if there was a successful civil rights movement it was because a martin luther king inspir audience there to come to your service to be inspired and to get out there as a year's resolution make new year's resolution tactically take these ideas and bring it in the world in their life in the world september tenth at the sanctuary seventy ninth in lexington w w w best high holy day services dot com two one two five six zero two two two thousand will be there thank you p s i will be there thank you so very very much and happy new year to all and happy new year to you all thank you so very very much as jim brother was here again on the radical imagination will see you next week and we're going to go out with a reef the franklin spear in the dark