The Baal Shem Tov, or Besht —  the founder of Chasidism — 
met the soul of the Messiah during an ascent to heaven. 
The Besht asked him, "When will the Master come?" 
The Messiah answered, "When your wellsprings break forth to the outside!" 
(from a letter written by the Besht to his brother-in-law about one of his soul ascents) 


 

Liberation and the Land

This workshop about liberation, redemption and ecology was taught at the Rabbis for Human Rights Conference in Dec 2006. Please note that I had a very sore throat and that my voice does not sound like this normally! The first two thirds of the workshop can be downloaded below. Please note that I had a very sore throat that day (you can hear my normal voice in many of the music tracks here).

The second third of a workshop on "An Earth Covenant Perspective on Human Rights" was upoloaded to neohasid on Oct 29, 2008. It's been pretty carefully edited up to about two-thirds of the way through, but I decided not to wait any longer to share it. That means you'll here pauses, squeaks and 'um's towards the end, but the content is the same. I'll link to a fully edited version when it exists.

The basic question: are human rights founded on human uniqueness and superiority compatible with ecology, which assumes equality between species? What Jewish sources can help us navigate between these two paradigms? You can read the article in Tikkun which deals with many of the same themes as the workshop here. You can also download text resources related to this study from Jewcology.com.

"An Earth Covenant Perspective on Human Rights"

Download/Listen to Part 1

Download/Listen to Part 2


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Design in progress © Rabbi David Mevorach Seidenberg 2006