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Katrina, God and Social
Morality
by Rabbi Michael Lerner
It didn’t have to happen. And it didn’t have to result in so many deaths
and social chaos.
Before going down the route of spiritual analysis, let me pause for a
moment of prayer and sadness for the suffering of the people of New
Orleans, prayers for comfort of those who are mourning losses, and
prayers for the survival of those who are still in danger. Prayer must
always be accompanied by acts of tzedaka, righteousness or charity. The
American Red Cross is playing the lead support role here, so you might
consider donating to them: call 1 800 HELP NOW.
But this is a classic case of the law of karma, or what the Torah warns
of environmental disaster unless we create a just society, or what
others call watching the chickens come home to roost, or what goes
around come around:
* Environmentalists are making a strong case that the escalated number
and ferocity of earthquakes is a direct product of global warming,
caused in large part by the reliance on fossil fuels. The persistent
refusal of the U.S. to join the nations of the world in implementing the
Kyoto Accords emission limits, and to impose serious pollution
restrictions on the cars being sold in the US, is a major factor in
global warming.
* The development for housing and commercial purposes combined with
massive oil and gas investments destroyed the natural protections from
storms that the coastal wetlands has previously provided.
· Funds that were specifically allocated for New Orleans which could
have been used in rebuilding levees and for storm protection were cut
from the federal budget so that President Bush could use those funds to
wage the war in Iraq.
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· The white majority of the people of Louisiana elected Congressional
representatives who enthusiastically support the war in Iraq and the
Bush Administration’s environmental irresponsibility. When economic
devastation hit workers in northern cities over the past several
decades, Louisianans voted to downsize the federal government and to let
others fend for themselves. Many talked about the glories of relying on
the free marketplace rather than on the “handouts” from a national
government that they abhorred. Or they told the poor and the homeless in
northern cities that “if they worked harder or had better habits or were
smarter they’d have employment and wouldn’t have to depend on others’
help. Or they saw that suffering of others as “the hand of God.”
And yet, the law of karma or Torah doesn’t work on a one to one basis,
delivering “just rewards” to those who have been directly involved in
causing evil, as JOB noted in the Bible and as we can note watching
global warming play out. The terrible truth is that it is the POOR, the
MOST VULNERABLE, who are the first to suffer. The wealthy built their
homes on higher ground, had better information, more insurance, and more
avenues of escape. So whether it is in facing the rising waters in
Bangladesh or Malaysia or Lousiana and Missippi, it’s going to be “the
least among us” who will suffer most immediately. This is why it is
inappropriate to blame the victim: because the way the world has been
created, the consequences of past social injustice, war and ecological
irresponsibility come to a whole planet--because from the cosmic
perspective we are one, we are all interdependent—and those who suffer
most are often not even those who are most culpable. Ditto with
environmental cancers—it’s often not the oil company executives but poor
people living in proximity to the air and water polluted by corporate
irresponsibility and abetted by the lawmakers who depend on corporate
contributions and pay them back by imposing the weakest possible
environmental regulations.
When some Christian fundamentalists talk about these as signs of the
impending doom of the planet, they are laughed off as irrational cranks.
It’s true that these fundamentalists see no connection between the doom
and the environmental irresponsibility that the politicians they support
have brought us. But nevertheless, their perception that we are living
at “the end of time” can’t be dismissed by those of us who know that the
life support systems of this planet are increasingly “in danger” if
politics continues the way it has been going, with politicians in BOTH
parties capitulating regularly to the ethos of selfishness and
materialism that is sustained by our corporate plunderers but is
validated by the votes of ordinary citizens.
Yet the fundamentalist message is deeply misleading also, because it
seems to suggest that all this is out of our hands, part of some divine
scheme. But it’s not. The biblical version is quite different from what
they say: it insists that the choice between life and death is in our
hands. After laying out the consequences of abandoning a path of justice
and righteousness, the Torah makes it clear that it is up to us. CHOOSE
LIFE, it tells us. That choosing of life means transforming our social
system in ways that neither Democrats nor Republicans have yet been
willing to consider—toward a new bottom line of love and caring,
kindness and generosity, ethical and ecological responsibility, and awe
and wonder at the grandeur of the universe replacing a narrow
utilitarian approach to Nature. This is precisely what we have been
calling for in our Interfaith organization, the Tikkun Community, and in
our new project of the Tikkun Community called The Network of Spiritual
Progressives. We need a New Bottom Line—a fundamental transformation of
what we value in this society. We want to take that message into the
public sphere, into the political parties, into the media, into the
schools, into the corporations.
What too frequently happens when disasters like this hit is that
everyone gets momentarily worked up about helping the victims, then a
few weeks later forgets the whole thing, and rarely do we get a serious
discussion (much less “follow through”) about how to solve the
underlying problems. Let’s not let that happen again. Please join the
Network of Spiritual Progressives of The Tikkun Community. For more
information about our perspective, go to the Core Vision at
www.tikkun.org
There is one beautiful thing that sometimes happens during these kind of
emergencies: the cynical realism that teaches us that people just care
about themselves, a teaching that makes most of us feel scared to be
“too generous” or “too idealistic” temporarily falls away, and people
are allowed to be their most generous and loving selves. When the
restraints are momentarily down, there is a huge outpouring of love,
generosity and kindness on the part of many Americans. People do things
like this that I saw yesterday: advertising on the internet’s Craig’s
List that they are willing to take in to their own home for many months
a family that has been displaced by the floods. This kind of
selflessness is something that people actually yearn to let out, but
under ordinary circumstances they’d fear to do so. So watch the goodness
show itself.
Not to deny that ugliness will also appear. The looting of stores in New
Orleans momentarily revealed the “bottom line” of government
responsibilities when the New Orleans police announced that they were
going to switch policing priorities from saving lives (of the poor) to
saving the property of the wealthy and the corporations from the
looters. It’s this kind of misplaced priorities over the course of many
decades that makes some poor people (and not only poor people, but
others who feel that they have a deep sense of social grievance) think
(mistakenly and unjustifiably) that it makes sense to take advantage of
this moment to rectify a long history of social injustice by taking from
the “haves” to provide for themselves as the “have-nots.” It’s hard to
witness this perversity on the part of both looters and police without a
deep sadness of heart about the depths of depravity that reveal
themselves in these moments, alongside the heights of goodness mentioned
in the previous paragraph.
For me, this is a prayerful moment, entering the period just before the
Jewish High Holidays (starting Oct. 3), realizing that the Jewish
tradition of taking ten days of reflection, repentance and atonement is
so badly needed not just by Jews but by everyone on the planet. I hope
we can find a way to build this practice among secular as well as
religious people, because America, indeed the whole world, so badly
needs to STOP and reflect, repent and atone, and find a new way, a new
path, and return to the deepest truths of love, kindness, generosity,
non-violence and peace.
Rabbi Michael Lerner
Editor, Tikkun and co-chair (with Cornel West and Sister Joan Chittister)
of the Tikkun Community
Author, The Left Hand of God (forthcoming in January from Harper San
Francisco)
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