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Arthur Waskow
Rabbi Arthur Waskow is the director of The Shalom Center. In 2013, Rabbi Waskow received T’ruah’s first Lifetime Achievement Award as a “Human Rights Hero.” His chapter, “Jewish Environmental Ethics: Adam and Adamah,” appears in Oxford Handbook of Jewish Ethics and Morality (Dorff & Crane, eds.; Oxford Univ. Press, 2013). Rabbi Waskow is the author of 22 books including Godwrestling, Seasons of Our Joy (JPS, 2012), and Down-to-Earth Judaism: Food, Money, Sex, and the Rest of Life. With Sister Joan Chittister and Murshid Saadi Shakur Chisht he co-authored The Tent of Abraham: Stories of Hope and Peace for Jews, Christians, and Muslims, and with with Rabbi Phyllis Berman wrote Freedom Journeys: Exodus & Wilderness Across Millennia (Jewish Lts, 2011). He edited Torah of the Earth (two volumes, eco-Jewish thought from earliest Torah to our own generation). These pioneering books on eco-Judaism are available at discount from “Shouk Shalom,” The Shalom center's online bookstore.
During the Aliyot | Tehilim Book 5 (Psalms 107–150) | Brit Milah & Simḥat Bat | Conflicts over Sovereignty and Dispossession | Earth, our Collective Home & Life-Support System | 🌐 Earth Day (22 April) | Ecotastrophes | Epidemics & Pandemics | Erev Pesaḥ | Erev Shabbat | Extracanonical Megillot | Rosh haShanah la-Ilanot (Tu biShvat) | Hateful Intolerance, Prejudice, and Bigotry | 🇺🇸 Inauguration Day (January 20th) | Yom haMabul (Day of the Flood, 17 Iyyar, Lev ba-Omer) | Yom haQeshet (Day of the Rainbow, 27 Iyyar) | Ḳaddish | Modern Miscellany | Motsei Shabbat | Mourning | Parashat b'Shalaḥ | Parashat Ḥayyei Sarah | Parashat Noaḥ | Haggadot for the Seder Leil Pesaḥ | 7th Day of Pesaḥ | Psalms 148 | Rosh haShanah (l’Maaseh Bereshit) | Shavuot | the Shema | the Shmitah Year (Earth's Shabbat) | Shulḥan Orekh | Torah Study | Sukkot | Symbolic Foods | Taanit Esther Readings | Tishah b'Av Readings | Seder Leil Rosh haShanah la-Ilanot (Tu biShvat) | Yeshayah (Isaiah) | Yom haḲeshet (27 Iyyar) Readings | Yom Kippur | Yom Kippur Readings
1994 Cave of the Patriarchs massacre | 2019 Israeli legislative election | 2020 coronavirus pandemic | 2020 United States racial reckoning | 59th Presidential Inauguration | Abrahamic | activism | activist | Aleph | Aliyah | American Jewry of the United States | anti-fascist Judaism | anti-Kahanist | Azazel | blessings | Bnei Yisrael and Yishmael | ברכות brakhot | ברית brit | candle lighting | communal | community organizing | Deuteronomy 11:13-21 | Deuteronomy 6:4 | devotional interpretation | Divine Feminine | eco-conscious | ecoḥasid | ecumenical prayers | אלהי נשמה Elohai neshamah | English vernacular prayer | entering | ארץ ישראל Erets Yisrael | four worlds | global climate change | global warming | green ḥevrah | haggadah supplements | הללו־יה hallelu-yah | חרוסת ḥaroset | הבדלות havdalot | Hebrew translation | hymns of creation | interbreathing | interconnectedness | interpretation as prayer | interpretive translation | Isaiah | Isaiah 57 | Isaiah 58 | Israeli-Jewish settler violence | Israelis and Palestinians | ירושלם Jerusalem | Jewish Renewal | קדיש דרבנן Ḳaddish D'Rabanan | קדיש יתום Mourner's Ḳaddish | כוונות kavvanot | kindling | ל״ג בעומר lag baomer | liberation | Maggidut | מדינת ישראל Medinat Yisrael | Memorial prayers | Midrashic interpretation | Miriam | MLK | משיח Moshiaḥ | neo-lurianic | North America | Northampton | Numbers 15:37-41 | paraliturgical elohai neshamah | Paraliturgical Mourner's Kaddish | paraliturgical nishmat kol ḥai | paraliturgical shema | participatory | peace | פסוקי דזמרה pesuqei dezimrah | Philadelphia | Pnai Ohr | Pnai Or | Prayers as poems | prophetic revelation | Psalms 148 | Rainbow Day | recipes | reconstructing Judaism | Nusḥaot l'Yahadut Mitkhadeshet | Renewal | RRC | סגולות segulot | September 2020 Western United States wildfires | שבת נחמו Shabbat Naḥamu | פרשת נח Parashat Noaḥ | שמע shemaŋ | שירת הים Shirat haYam | social justice | State v. Chauvin | symbolic foods | talmud torah | תחינות teḥinot | Temple Mount | United States | והיה אם שמע v'haya im shemo'a | water protectors | Yah Bishvat | זמירות zemirot | 20th century C.E. | 21st century C.E. | 58th century A.M.
Sarah Barasch-Hagans | Yeshayahu ben Amōts | Phyllis Berman | Leila Gal Berner | Tamara Cohen | Elat Chayyim Center for Jewish Spirituality | Marcia Falk | Jack Kessler (trōpification) | Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation) | Mishkan Shalom | Neohasid·org | Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (translation) | Zalman Schachter-Shalomi | David Seidenberg | the Shalom Center | the Masoretic Text | Unknown Author(s) | Aharon N. Varady (transcription)
וְהָיָה אִם שָׁמֹעַ | V’haya Im Shamo’a (And If You Listen): a prayer in a time of planetary danger by Rabbi Arthur Waskow
Contributed on: 09 Nov 2012 by Arthur Waskow | the Shalom Center | ❧
A midrashic translation/ interpretation of the second paragraph of the Sh’ma. . . .
שְׁמַע | Shema, an interpretive translation by Rabbi Arthur Waskow (2003)
Contributed on: 12 Aug 2011 by Arthur Waskow | the Shalom Center | ❧
Sh’sh’sh’ma Yisra’el — Listen, You Godwrestlers! Pause from your wrestling and hush’sh’sh To hear — YHWH/ Yahh Hear in the stillness the still silent voice, The silent breathing that intertwines life; YHWH/ Yahh elohenu Breath of life is our God, What unites all the varied forces creating all worlds into one-ness, Each breath unique, And all unified; YHWH / Yahh echad! Yahh is One. Listen, You Godwrestlers! No one people alone owns this Unify-force; YHWH / Yahh is One. . . .