Rabbi Michael Lerner’s Revolutionary Love: A Political Manifesto Heal and Transform the World, presents a strategy that is not only useful for 2020, but a guide for the next 30 years as the focus inevitably turns toward saving the life support system of Earth.
The caring society is the only realistic path for humanity to survive, and in Revolutionary Love Rabbi Lerner lays out a powerful and compassionate plan for building a caring-centric society. The first step is to challenge the meritocratic fantasies championed by the wealthy but also by the self-deceptive teachings of many in the pop-psychology and pop-spirituality fields that “you create your own reality” (and hence have no one to blame but yourself. The next step is to challenge the liberal and progressive culture that appears to many outside it to project disrespect for many Americans and their culture and religion, blaming every white person for racism and sexism
Yet one cannot escape the conclusion that the millions of people who responded to the murder of George Floyd are demanding a dramatic societal transformation The time for deep structural and transformational change is now. The time to address the deep immoral economic and health disparities among African Americans and Latinos that caused needless infections and deaths is now.
Rabbi Lerner’s envisions a “woke America” that will inevitably turn toward saving the life support system of Earth. He shows how to replace the selfishness and materialist reductionism of capitalist societies with “the Caring Society—Caring for each other and Caring for the earth.”
As a Rabbi and As a psychotherapist Lerner also promotes a Global Marshall (Generosity) Plan to help end global and domestic poverty, a guaranteed annual income for the bottom 70% of income earners, Lerner also argues for a Environmental and Social Responsibility Amendment which would ban corporate interest and policies from politics.
Keith Ellison, Attorney-General of the State of Minnesota who recently indicted the 4 policemen involved in the murder of George Floyd and willl be the lead prosecutor at their trial declares “ Rabbi Michael Lerner’s new book Revolutionary Love: a Political Manifest to Heal and Transform the World:
“The caring society is the only realistic path for humanity to survive, and in Revolutionary Love Rabbi Lerner lays out a powerful and compassionate plan for building that caring society. I love this book. Please read it and join with others to build the movement that can enable these ideas to reshape our society that so badly needs this vision.”
In a post Trumpian world and in a newly awoken America, Lerner’s strategy can create a more transformative movement that is more generous and loving and actually embodies the values it hopes to see in the society it seeks to create!
I will be in touch with you shortly to arrange an interview with Rabbi Lerner regarding his revolutionary book: Revolutionary Love,
Editor, Tikkun Magazine www.tikkun.org 510 644 1200 email: RabbiLerner.tikkun@gmail.com
Chair, The Network of Spiritual Progressives www.spiritualprogressives.org
Rabbi, Beyt Tikkun Synagogue-Without-Walls in S.F. and Berkeley, Ca. wwwbeyttikkun.org
Author: (2020); Jewish Renewal: A path to healing and transformation; Embracing Israel/Palestine; The Left Hand of God: Taking Back our Country from the Religious Right; Spirit Matters; The Politics of Meaning; with Cornel West: Jews and Blacks–Let the Healing Begin; The Socialism of Fools: Anti-Semitism on the Left; Surplus Powerlessness: The Psychodynamics of Daily Life and Work; and more.
*Harvard Univeristy Professor Cornel West (author of Race Matters) says that Lerner is “one of the most significant prophetic public intellectuals of our generationa” Revolutionary Love has received high praise from Ms. Magazine founding editor Gloria Steinem, Ariel Dorfman, Medea Benjamin, Christian theologian Walter Brueggemann, Dean Ornish, Riane Eisler, Thomas Moore and Henry Giroux, go to tikkun.org/lj–
“What is post-socialism? Can we conceive of a society that is based on community and love? Rabbi Michael Lerner can. Anyone wanting to overhaul the inequities and mean-spiritedness of our social system should read this book–and incorporate its message into the array of social-change movements. Going beyond the narrow confines of what we are resisting, this book not only puts forward a positive vision, drawing much from the wisdom of feminists and peace activists, but provides a coherent strategy for how to get there. It liberates readers to go beyond the ‘be realistic’ command of our ruling elites and embrace the beautiful and love-filled world that Michael Lerner proposes.”–Medea Benjamin, cofounder of Code Pink