Category Archives: Jewish-Interfaith

Educational activities for children and inspiration for adults, by Lauren Zinn at ZinnHouse.

Five Quick Reflections on Responsible Religion

1. Responsible Religion

M-115We can ignore it. We can try going around it, under it, over it.
But religion can lead to Spiritual Sustenance if we go through it.
This means 
thinking for ourselves, understanding how religion affects us and others— now and later, understanding others’ religions, and creating a relationship to religion that allows us to grow -responsibly.
ZinnHouse is here to help.

2. Floating
and Swimming

Floating and Swimming Through Religion, mixed media by Lauren Zinn.Rabbi David Wolpe wrote that floating takes faith. Floating is especially enjoyable after learning to swim, to propel through water. And faith is especially appreciated after understanding religion.
How do different religious traditions, customs, norms affect our spirit?  It is one thing to float through religion, it is another to understand and move it in ways that strengthen us spiritually. I encourage you to look at this website and, in addition to floating, learn to swim.
October 9, 2010 

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Marianne Williamson was Right about African-American Women

I never forgot what Marianne Williamson said 15 years ago. During a Palm Sunday Service at Unity Church in Detroit, she remarked that a spiritual revival would arise with African-American women. At first, I thought of Oprah. But then I looked around me in my own small circle and I see what she meant. Continue reading Marianne Williamson was Right about African-American Women

Bet You CAN Learn Hegel on Hanukkah

drawing of HegelI know. Hanukkah passed. But the season of darkness hasn’t. Now that you aren’t distracted by dreidels, light eight candles anyway. For the Light.

 

You heard of Hegel. The German idealist (1770-1831). Whose writing is so dense even philosophers have trouble understanding him. Whose name is associated with the “dialectic”. (Go ahead. Say it. dīəˈlektik. It’s fun.) How can Hanukkah help us interpret Hegel?

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“Caravan of No Despair” by Mirabai Starr

book cover for Caravan of No DespairWhen I met Mirabai Starr at an Interspiritual Conference in Arizona, I got the cliff-note version of her now latest book, Caravan of No Despair. This 275 page edition of her spiritual transformation fueled by her daughter’s death invites readers through her darkest despair as she holds our hands through the process.
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“How’s Your Faith?” by David Gregory

imgresI don’t watch television journalism, so I didn’t recognize David Gregory’s name from  Meet the Press when his memoir came to my desk. But the title got my attention. How’s Your Faith? is a courageous testimony by an adult child of intermarriage whose own interfaith marriage sparks his spiritual journey. Raised as a Jew, he marries a devout Christian only to realize  his relationship with religion, and ultimately, with himself, needs attention.  Continue reading “How’s Your Faith?” by David Gregory

The TEN Plagues of Money

imgresGiven the global growing divide in wealth concentration and given that this happens to be a year of shmita (release) when all debts are to be forgiven (according to biblical law), it makes sense to use the holidays of Passover and Easter to reconsider our relationship to money. Are we enslaved to a certain way of perceiving money? Could our relationship to it be ‘reborn’?
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