[Peace-discuss] Michael Lerner

[David Green]

My 2 shekels: Michael Lerner has relatively decent
instincts regarding human rights and social justice,
including for the Palestinians. But he's also rather
full of his rabbinical self, and has a weak political
analysis with a flawed emphasis on mental and spritual
health--not that I'm opposed to those things, and not
that I couldn't use more of them, if anyone has some
extra that they're not presently using. But what sort
of philosophy could it be if he was trying to peddle
it to Hilary Clinton? In spite of his basic regard for
Palestinian rights, this lack of a solid
historical/political critique causes him to say
ridiculous things. In the book Jewish Renewal, his
major philosophical statement, he refers to the need
for Israelis and Jews to acknowledge the
"unintentional" pain that they have caused to the
Palestinian people. I find this statement remarkable,
in the same sense that my wife would describe my
cooking as remarkable. Lerner looks good too many Jews
mostly because mainstream Jewish institutions are so
bad. I analogize my feelings about Lerner to those
about Cornel West, especially since they published a
dialogue regarding Jewish-black relations, in which
their egos fittingly purport to represent their
respective groups. It's an interesting book in some
ways, but at another more pseudo-charismatic level
they also deserve each other. Not my ideal
Jewish-black relationship, but I suppose better than
say, Joseph Lieberman and Maya Angelou. So let him
speak, and then let's work for a world in which Lerner
will have the obscurity he deserves, and Jews like me
can be complacent enough to go back to learning
philosophy from bad Woody Allen movies.

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