For Those Who Can’t Believe

A Very Special Friday Night Event: “A Dialogue between Rabbi Mark Sameth and Dr. Sarah Tauber: For Those Who Can’t Believe.” (See the bottom of this blog-post for details.)  

A great attraction of meditation is that it doesn't ask us to believe anything we know not to be true. Can the same be said of religion? We know the Universe is some 14-billion-years-old, not thousands. And so is religion a thing of the past? Or is it possible that what is mythically true about religion is exactly what is needed at this critical moment in history? Might our various religious communities—creatively revisioned—hold the key to uniquely addressing the pressing issues challenging us today? 

That will be the topic of discussion Friday night as I engage Dr. Sarah Tauber in a dialogue about Arthur Green’s latest book “Radical Judaism: Rethinking God and Tradition.”

Green is a rabbi and one of the most important scholars of Jewish Mysticism on the scene today. And yet he calls himself a “religious humanist.” He takes what some would say is a radical position. He argues that we are all over-involved in our own particular religious stories. He says that we need to focus on the “bigger story, infinitely bigger, and one which we all share” so that we might together address the issues which today threaten the planet. And yet he wants to see religion survive. How far, if at all, can we step out of own stories and yet see them survive?

Recently I reviewed Green’s book “Radical Judaism: Rethinking God and Tradition”—it appears in the current issue of the Journal of Jewish Education, for which Dr. Tauber is the Book Review editor. Although the book is addressed to the Jewish community, people of all faiths—and no faith—will find Green’s argument provocative and important and, I believe, helpful.

Date and Time: Everyone—without exception—is welcome. Friday night, April 27, 7:15 pm: Kabbalat Shabbat Service; followed at 8:15 pm by: For Those Who Can’t Believe: A  Dialogue between Rabbi Mark Sameth and Dr. Sarah Tauber on Arthur Green’s book “Radical Judaism” This is the kickoff event for our OPEN HOUSE WEEKEND (April 27-29). A full schedule of events for children and adults is at www.ShalomPCS.com.

Rabbi Mark Sameth is the spiritual leader of Joyful Judaism: Pleasantville Community Synagogue an inclusive, progressive synagogue – with members from twenty towns, villages and cities all across Westchester and “A Hebrew School Your Kids Can Love.” Read The New York Times article. Follow Rabbi Mark on Twitter www.Twitter.com/Fourbreaths Weekly meditation at the synagogue every Saturday morning at 9 am is open to the public. Everyone – without exception - is welcome and warmly invited.