Approaching the Ramadan fast for the first time. (Link courtesy of The Velveteen Rabbi.)
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Navroz Mubarak 2009
Tomorrow, Saturday, is Navroz, the Iranian solar new year, and a day that many Shi’ah and people in the Persianate world celebrate. I normally have my Navroz poem up, but this year the day seems to have hit the big time in the US. 1. Stephen Colbert mentions it. 2. FriendFeed has a special Navroz banner. 3. President Obama send out Navroz greetings.
Responding to the unthinkable
An op-ed in today’s Boston Globe led me to the book Responsa to the Holocaust. This book is going on my summer reading list. The level of commitment to God in the face of such horror amazes me. Dealing with crisis as a religious person is difficult enough; as a community I cannot comprehend it.
Law and Cultural Purity
Not all fundamentalism is about violence. Sometimes it’s about using the law. Unfortunately, some of our elected representatives are aiming to use the law to define what it means to be “American” by excluding Muslims. They seek to turn back the clock on American inclusion, forgetting that when you can exclude one group, you can exclude any group. We must accept that we live in a global village. Without that basic premise, we miss many of the political patterns emerging both in the US and around the world. We can react to the “new” in two ways: embrace it or…