Rabbi Michael Lerner
Making Religious Values Our World's Values
Rabbi Michael Lerner, one of today’s foremost proponents of a social justice oriented spirituality, calls for a new spiritual approach that is committed to the time-honored Jewish tradition of "tikkun" or transforming this world.
"We need to get religious and spiritual traditions to take seriously their own message--that the world could be based on love, kindness, generosity, and compassion, instead of just using that as cheerleaders to get people into churches, synagogues, mosques, or a Buddhist meditation. We need to insist on developing a strategy to change the world so that the world would reflect those values. We must take those spiritual visions outside of the religious community into the mainstream of political and economic social change."
Biography
Rabbi Michael Lerner, political revolutionary, humanitarian, psychologist, founder and editor of Tikkun magazine, and rabbi of Berkeley’s Beyt Tikkun synagogue, is one of the leading Jewish Renewal activists and proponents of a “politics of meaning.” Inspired by his first mentor Abraham Heschel, a civil rights advocate and deeply spiritual man, Lerner has worked hard to reform a more xenophobic Judaism and to inspire and support an engaged liberal politics among the spiritual left. He has received numerous commendations, addressed a wide variety of spiritual and political forums, and has authored several seminal books on a new spiritual politics.
Rabbi Michael Lerner, political revolutionary, humanitarian, psychologist, founder and editor of Tikkun magazine, and rabbi of Berkeley’s Beyt Tikkun synagogue, is one of the leading Jewish Renewal activists and proponents of a “politics of meaning.” Inspired by his first mentor Abraham Heschel, a civil rights advocate and deeply spiritual man, Lerner has worked hard to reform a more xenophobic Judaism and to inspire and support an engaged liberal politics among the spiritual left. He has received numerous commendations, addressed a wide variety of spiritual and political forums, and has authored several seminal books on a new spiritual politics.