A celebration of God, music, and partnership society in reformed Judaism

Friday August 26 was my second time ever attending a Jewish Shabbat service as a guest of the women’s interfaith group WISDOM. I knew that Temple Israel, which hosted this year’s World Sabbath for Religious Reconciliation interfaith service in January, has an open and cooperative view toward people of other faiths, so I was intrigued by the prospect of attending an actual Shabbat service there—particularly an outside one, because I’m a nature-lover who had never attended a worship service of any kind outdoors.

Before the service, Gail Katz, one of WISDOM’s co-founders and a member of Temple Israel’s congregation for about a year, gave a 45-minute presentation inside the sanctuary to introduce the guests to some of the most important Jewish prayer and devotional practices and ritual objects. Throughout her discussion she also gave some comparison and contrast between orthodox and reformed practice.

I had already noticed on the way in that Temple Israel is a more egalitarian congregation than any other Jewish or Christian congregation I’d seen. Both the brothers’ group and the sisters’ group seem to have equal status in the congregation, and carry out equally as important services and activities for their community, as evidenced by the informative posters in the lobby. The fact it was a woman who brought out the Torah scrolls for us to see—which it was a privilege for guests to be able to get a close look at—toward the end of Gail’s talk also said a lot.

One of the most important steps that reformed Judaism and newer Christian denominations have taken is bringing women closer to equality with men. Gail’s talk, coupled with what I heard at the Shabbat service later, reaffirmed for me that the old religions need not be thrown out and completely replaced with something new.

If you read my post about Riane Eisler’s work regarding partnership and dominator societies, you’ll see why this is so important to me. While listening to Gail’s talk before the service, it popped into my head that in The Chalice & the Blade, the latter book Riane Eisler identified herself as a Jew. Eisler’s reverence for the faith she was raised in is evident in her writing, and I thought to myself that what I was hearing about and experiencing at Temple Israel must be Riane Eisler’s kind of Judaism.

With that in mind, it was almost spooky (in a good way) when I heard the term “partnership” used in the context of marriage between man and woman in the Shabbat service’s talk, which was given by a woman. She told us that this evening was the anniversary of the granting of women’s suffrage in America, and she spoke of how she was raised by parents in a Jewish tradition to see herself as no less capable of being independent and being successful in a career than a man. She even commented that she preferred to keep her own last name when she married, and said the fact she’s often given a hard time about that when it comes to conducting personal business for her family shows that women still do have a long way to go.

That being said, how far we have come is something to celebrate, and this evening was definitely a celebration of not just God and Jewish tradition, but of the partnership between the two halves of humanity. An engaged couple was then invited up for a pre-nuptial blessing, and I heard the same partnership message emphasized in this blessing.

The setting for this message couldn’t have been more perfect. The yard—or garden—of Temple Israel looked and felt like what I imagine the worship grounds of ancient peaceful agrarian societies to be like. At one point I looked down at the concrete courtyard the chairs were arranged on, and saw the colorful inlaid mosaic depicting different fruits, with their names written in shiny mosaic glass next to them. The open concrete area was divided into sections by hedges, and surrounded by lush trees, grass, and a large pond over which we saw the beautiful sunset.

Another personal passion of mine is music. Music has always been more than entertainment for me—good and uplifting music is a spiritual experience that inspires my art, my writing, and my life in general. Experiencing music as the focal point of a worship service was thus a profound experience for me. The outdoor Shabbat service was full of music, and in Temple Israel’s illuminated manuscript-style siddur (Jewish hymnal), which featured both traditional and contemporary prayers, music was described as the language of prayer, a gift from God, and a way to praise God.

Not only did I feel profoundly that I was on sacred ground and having a great spiritual experience, it also had the same impact on me as attending a magnificent concert. The musicians and the cantors were amazing, the primary singer sounding as good as any classically-trained opera singer.

At one point I looked over to the grassy area at my left and saw a woman dancing with her child in her arms. Children freely moved around during the outdoor service, and watching them made me wish I’d been raised in a tradition like this, rather than being expected to sit and be quiet while someone droned on from a podium saying stuff that meant nothing to me because I was too young to appreciate or understand it. Temple Israel’s outdoor Shabbat service will go down in history as one of the most enchanting and uplifting experiences I’ve ever had of worship as a celebration.

Lately my thing when walking around sacred ground is taking off my shoes and walking through the grass barefoot. To get back to my car, I intentionally took the long way around to the temple’s parking lot so I could delay putting my shoes back on for as much of the walk as possible.

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Illustration by Karla Joy Huber, 2013; Prismacolor marker, Sharpie marker

On population and context

This post was originally an academic essay I wrote in my bachelor’s program at Madonna University, and I decided it would make a good post in the context of my blog’s intercultural focus. It’s also a response to some recent conversations I’ve had with people about why certain other nations don’t seem to have a lot of the problems the U.S. just can’t seem to make any lasting progress toward eliminating. Thus, it reads like a third-person essay instead of an opinion piece, and I decided to leave it that way rather than drastically change it just for the sake of tailoring it to my usual writing style.

The United States has always been critical of ethnocentrism in other nations, but the U.S. may be the most ethnocentric of them all. We have the tendency to think our ways are better, more culturally evolved, than other nations’, that our systems of government, religion, and even the ways we conduct our business and social lives would benefit everyone, if only they were willing to try them.

The biggest mistake we make in this is failing to consider the larger context that our, as well as other nations’, customs and governments rose out of. Our election-based bipartisan government, high value on freedom of speech with little regard to the con-sequences of unchecked self-expression, and our version of democracy would be appropriate for few other nations, given those nations’ histories, the efficacy of the social, business, and governmental systems they do have, and—perhaps one of the biggest factors in this day and age—their population density.

Japan’s population is about half that of America’s, and resides in a land area one-fifth the size of California. The other 80% of the country is mountainous and non-farmable. By contrast, most of the United States’ landmass is livable, and, though some areas are virtually unsettled and others densely packed, even New York is probably not as densely-populated as most of Japan.

With cultural emphases on group welfare and harmony over individualism and overconsumption, Japan seems to manage its population density quite well. “There is much greater emphasis on the group in Japan, and on not standing out or doing anything which will bring dishonor to the family or other social unit”. This emphasis helps keep Japan’s rate of crime fairly low, despite that high population density usually correlates with a higher prevalence of crime.

Also significant is the majority of crimes in Japan, about 70%, are non-violent, such as theft, whereas America has more of a problem with violent crime, such as murder, rape, and assault. This contrast is attributable part to Japan’s strict gun-control laws, which contrast with the U.S., “where special-interest groups promote the idea that people have the ‘right’ to whatever kinds of weapons they want in whatever quantity”. Because Americans don’t like to be “told what to do,” we tend to forget that every right entails responsibility. “[T]he concept of responsibility is more ingrained in the Japanese culture than it is in the U.S. culture.”

In America, growing population density has become a liability. Americans are stereotypically more “selfish” than the Japanese, seeing having to distribute resources amongst more people as a threat to individual prosperity. Those who foreshadow American population spiraling out of control see the increase in density bringing about social and probably economic chaos. While Japan’s population growth has stalled, and by some estimates is even slowly declining, America’s is reaching levels that Western individualists consider alarming.

America’s consumption and waste of natural resources are alarmingly out of proportion with its population, which represents only about 5% of the human race. This wastefulness is part of why America has more difficulty with increases in population density than Asian nations, who emphasize communal welfare, rather than the “right” of individuals to accumulate as much as they want, without thinking of who may be going without.

In his article “U.S. Population Growth No Cause for Celebration,” Lester Brown indicates the population growth of the U.S. is about 2.7 million per year, factoring in immigration and the two-to-one birth/death ratio. He posits that by 2043, there will be about 400 million Americans, a 25% increase from the estimated 300 million population of late 2006. Some estimates point to America’s population being close to or just over one billion people within the next few decades, but this still wouldn’t lead us to the population density of Japan.

Craig Huneke, Ashley Reynolds and other winners of an essay contest hosted by Negative Population Growth, an organization advocating for governmental policies to halt population growth and severely limit or even prohibit immigration, point  to  complete  depletion of  earth’s natural resources by  the middle of this century if America’s population growth is not halted and eventually reversed.

Advocates of government population control policies however miss much of the point regarding why America seems to have less and less of everything—jobs, food, land, etc. —to go around. Why America and its resources would be overtaxed at such a lower population density than Asian nations already support gives cause to consider how these nations can manage without falling apart, yet America cannot.

The American emphases on overconsumption and obsession with asserting individuality over community are probably doing more damage, at a faster rate, than our population growth.

An exploration of some of the ways the Japanese cope with living in such close quarters is essential to understanding why their nation in many ways appears to run much more smoothly than America, which appears to be falling apart, socially, politically, and certainly economically.

It’s difficult to directly compare Japanese customs and viewpoints with American ones, because for each aspect of one culture, there is not necessarily an equivalent or exact opposite in the other. In their article “The Experience of Family in Japan and the United States: Working with the Constraints Inherent in Cross-Cultural Research,” Bell et al state, “cross-cultural comparisons require that the same thing—the same concept or behavior with the same meaning—be identified in each culture” (Bell et al). Japan has many customs that Americans have no frame of reference for, and vice versa. For example, Americans value competition: competition sports, competition in business, and other forms of “one-upmanship.” However, there is no word for “competition” in Japanese. Historically the concept hasn’t been endorsed in any way there, at least not in the mainstream. So it can’t be said, “Americans value competition as such, and the Japanese value competition as such…”

Where one does find cultural equivalents is in the areas of human relations and adaptation, which are among the biggest contributors to balance or imbalance in social equilibrium. In the U.S., we’re used to scorning “conformity,” “tradition,” and “group mentality.” In Japan, these traits are necessary for survival, practical, and not considered signs of personal weakness or stubbornness to grow and develop. Debunking the individualistic myth that conformity equates with stagnation is the fact that while Americans are busy obsessing over how best to stand out and rise above everyone else, Japanese society has technologically and economically advanced at an impressive rate, which they accomplished as a group. The American cliché about “strength in numbers” certainly applies to Japan’s twentieth and twenty-first century successes as a nation.

Japan’s cultural emphasis on harmony and cooperation, both in business and family life, has kept its people from developing a high prevalence of the problems that usually come with high population density. If Japan had the emphases on individuality, self-expression, and the needs of the one outweighing the needs of the group that Americans and other Westerners pride themselves on, their civilization would probably self-destruct in a very short period of time.

Except when it comes to things that make some aspect of our lives more “convenient,” Americans do not like being expected to adapt. We see things as concrete, either-or, wrong or right. America is a land of extremes and immoderation, whereas in Japan there is “continuous adjustment to an ever-changing environment” (Condon). Americans are taught to “stand their ground,” while the Japanese find it far more practical to be flexible and accommodating, and see things as relative. “In this view, Japanese tend to be seen as less judgmental than Americans,” Bell et al state.

The Japanese are also “less likely to expect there to be a single truth. Truth and morality are socially relative; both must be considered in the context of relationship. This tendency is captured in the Japanese saying, ‘Even a thief may be 30 percent right.’” (Bell et al).

One way the Japanese cooperate on a large scale to ease their day-to-day interactions is wearing clothing specific to age, group, or other status. “Japan is a nation of uniforms,” John Condon states in With Respect to the Japanese, explaining there are specific outfits for students, people in different professions, even newlyweds and housewives (Condon). These clothing guidelines are not necessarily always adhered to, but for a people that value scarcity in speech more so than Westerners, it’s beneficial to look at people and know immediately who they are and where they fit, rather having to add that many more words to introductions.

In direct contrast, Americans seem to feel some ambiguity in their interactions with new people heightens the experience. This reflects our compulsion to assert our individual identity as much as possible, as though fearing it could easily be taken away if we seem to fit in too well. Many people, particularly youth, intentionally wear clothing that doesn’t represent who they feel they are for the sake of making a “statement,” challenging people to “not judge a book by its cover.” Most everyone knows a woman who has dressed in a short skirt and tight top and then complained why she got so many sexual advances from men that day. Many young people complain of being disregarded by potential employers, after walking in to apply wearing ragged jeans and faded tee-shirts.

Though it’s true we shouldn’t be quick to judge others based on what we perceive their status to be, contradictions in people’s self-representation are nonetheless cause for exasperation and confusion.

Given this tendency to expect others to not automatically assume we are who we appear to be without involved character investigation, it’s ironic that Americans criticize Japanese for being “roundabout” and indirect in their communication. Japanese people themselves admit their language is less direct than American English, but, when used in the clear contexts Japan has in its basic human relations, such as fewness of words, emphasis on cooperation, and clear identification of social and business roles with things as simple as dress, the Japanese are perhaps overall more direct than Americans.

If they were really as indirect as we accuse them of being, would Japanese society run as well and be as successful as it is, with minimal disruptions for resolving misunderstandings and conflict? The way the United States handles its growing population density and the way Asian nations—particularly Japan—handle theirs is telling of how efficient America’s culture really is when it comes to adapting to change.

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Works Cited

Bell, Linda G., Hisako Dendo, and Yojiro Nakata. "The Experience of Family in Japan and the United States: Working with the Constraints Inherent in Cross-Cultural Research." Journal of Comparative Family Studies 35.3 (2003): 351-73. Social Sciences Full Text. H. W. Wilson. Madonna University Library, Livonia, MI. 9 Apr. 2009 <http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com/>.

Brown, Lester. “U.S. Population Growth No Cause For Celebration. Earth Policy Institute. Truthout.org. 4 Oct. 2006. 9 Apr. 2009 <http://www.truthout.org/article/lester-brown-us-population-growth-no-cause-celebration>.

“Crime in Japan.” Darkchilde’s Sanctuary on the Web. 9 Apr. 2009 <http://www.bookmice.net/darkchilde/japan/crime.html>.

Condon, John C. With Respect to the Japanese: A Guide For Americans. Yarmouth, Maine: Intercultural Press, Inc., 1984.

Reynolds, Ashley. “Effects of Overpopulation.” Negative Population Growth. 9 Apr. 2009 <http://www.npg.org/winningessays.html>.


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Window illustration by Karla Joy Huber; Prismacolor marker, Sharpie marker, colored pencil

Helping Detroit move from diversity to pluralism: The Michigan Professional Communicators with interest in religion and cross-cultural issues

In my previous post, I introduced you to the Michigan Professional Communicators with interest in religion and cross-cultural issues (MPC), a professional networking group that meets once every two months in a place of cultural, historic, and religious significance in the city of Detroit. I had the privilege of attending my second gathering of this group last Friday at the Ecumenical Theological Seminary in Detroit’s “Piety Hill” district on Woodward.

Before the meeting, we were given a tour of the ETS’s chapel, which was built for Detroit’s First Presbyterian Church in the 1800s. I felt like I had stepped back in time to some Renaissance-era cathedral in Europe, which contrasted interestingly with the ETS’s current progressive and appropriately pluralistic approach to religious education.

Like the DIA, the ETS was well-chosen for this meeting not only because of its inherent cultural and spiritual worth to metro Detroit, but because it too has a groundbreaking event coming up this fall: It will be branching out into interfaith ministry in its fall 2011 semester.

The original context of “ecumenism” in Christianity was openness to any Christian denomination, and the ETS wisely decided it is necessary in today’s world to expand that definition to encompass other religions as well. The ETS plans to begin preparing people in its chaplaincy program to be of service to people of other faiths, particularly Islam.

After the tour of the sanctuary, we went upstairs to our meeting room, where ETS president Dr. Marsha Foster Boyd described in more detail the seminary’s history, current academic programs for ministerial and chaplaincy training for Christians of any denomination, and the upcoming interfaith chaplaincy program.

The rest of the meeting was the discussion “roundtable,” as facilitator David Crumm calls it. This meeting’s events discussion focused primarily on September 11, which is significant this year not only because it’s the tenth anniversary, but also because it falls on a Sunday, America’s default worship day. For people who’d like to do some kind of community service to mark the occasion there’ll probably be at least a few volunteer projects for them to choose from that day.

The Interfaith Leadership Council of Metropolitan Detroit (IFLC) and Women’s Interfaith Solutions for Dialogue & Outreach in MetroDetroit (WISDOM) are both promoting a community service day starting at FocusHOPE in Detroit. What makes this event special, WISDOM co-founder Gail Katz pointed out, is people aren’t just going to stuff backpacks or food pantry baskets for three hours and then go home; the simultaneous service projects will be followed by a guided discussion for all the volunteers, who will share their experiences and insights from the day of performing service with people of different faiths or cultures. You can read more about the actual event here. Another organization that was mentioned is Clergy Beyond Borders, which is also another good source for learning about various service opportunities.

This week, ReadTheSpirit.com began a series of ten-years-later reflections on September 11, 2001. These stories aren’t recaps or narratives about people’s experiences on that day in 2001, but rather reflections on what life is like now for people affected directly or indirectly by that tragedy. Some famous spiritual leaders have written pieces for this series, including Jack Kornfield, one of the most famous Western contemporary Buddhist leaders.

Read the Spirit was co-founded by our MPC facilitator, David Crumm. It is “an online magazine covering religion, spirituality, popular culture,” as described on the Web site. “Read the Spirit recommends the best in books, films, Web sites and other media on spirituality, values and diversity,” and also publishes hardcopy books, including WISDOM’s Friendship & Faith and Daniel Buttry’s Blessed Are the Peacemakers, both described in my previous post. David Crumm informed us Read the Spirit will soon be publishing a series of books about the spiritual challenges of caregiving, including inspiration for caregivers who are having difficulty getting their religious needs met.

At this meeting I also learned of yet another intriguing interfaith peacemaking group, the Song and Spirit Institute for Peace in nearby Berkley, Michigan. Founded by Brother Al Mascia and Maggid Steve Klaper—self-described as “a Franciscan Minstrel and a Jewish Troubadour”— Song and Spirit hosts spiritual retreats, performances by people of different faiths, seminars by local religious leaders, and more.

The fact that I had never heard of any of these groups before, despite them being within 20 to 30 minutes from where I live, prompted me to think about how uninformed we really are, even though we are constantly bombarded with information intended to show us what’s going on in the world. I realized that we are barely even aware of what’s in our own state beyond tourist information, and I’m glad that I’ve finally found people who can correct this situation.

For example, it was only last summer that I was made aware of the amazing culture and history Detroit still has to offer, by receiving insider tours by my dear friend and lifelong Detroit resident, Joe Hunter. When I mention places he’s taken me to or told me about, people look at me in bewilderment, and first seek to confirm I did just say these places are in Detroit, the same Detroit they’ve heard of and disregarded as a cultural and economic lost-cause for years.

You might have a similar feeling of “Really, in Detroit?” when you read this blog about these initiatives in and around the city, but go to the hyperlinks (by clicking on text in a different color throughout this and all my other posts) or to Google and see for yourself!

These organizations all have something important to share. Some are still fairly new, and they have already made an immense difference in the lives of people who do know about and have been helped by them.

So far, attending the MPC meetings is helping give me some direction on how I can make valuable contributions through using my writing and media credentials to make a difference in the Metropolitan Detroit community, by helping its interfaith and cross-cultural leaders achieve their goals for creating true cultural and religious pluralism out of diversity.

“Diversity is a fact,” Gail Katz said at the June meeting, “but pluralism is an accomplishment.”

One of ETS’s representatives pointed out the difference between sympathy and empathy, and said that when we put these two together we get compassion. Sympathy is feeling and reacting to someone else’s pain or need, while empathy is understanding why someone else is feeling pain or need, and compassion is the action stemming from relating in this way with others.

We acknowledge and respond through sympathy, we step into the other’s shoes to understand the situation through empathy, and then we step out of that person’s shoes and back into our own to make rational decisions about helping to solve the problem which caused the pain or need.

So, I’m going to strive to use this sympathy + empathy = compassion formula to guide what I do next, and I hope you will too.

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Image: “Transition Tree 2” by Karla Joy Huber, 2013; Prismacolor marker and Sharpie marker

Connecting communicators and artists interested in diversity and interreligious dialogue with people who can use their talents

After I first contacted David Crumm—author, editor, former religion writer for the Detroit Free Press and other newspapers, and co-founder of Read the Spirit Books and online magazine—he gave me two recommendations: Write a story for the women’s interfaith group WISDOM’s Friendship & Faith Web site, and attend the June 24 meeting of the Michigan Professional Communicators with interest in religion and cross-cultural issues at the Detroit Institute of Arts.

The meetings are always held at places of cultural or religious significance, and it was pointed out that the Detroit Institute of Arts has one of the top six galleries in the nation. Before the discussion part of the meeting, the DIA’s curator gave a detailed presentation about the upcoming "Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus" exhibit, which will open in November and showcase many of Rembrandt’s paintings that have never been displayed in the U.S. He talked about how Rembrandt broke with the standard artistic conventions of his time by taking an interest in a more visually accurate portrayal of Jesus—by using Jewish models rather than ethnocentrically portraying Jesus with European looks and pale hair.

After the presentation, Mr. Crumm led us into the “roundtable” part of the meeting. The purpose of the discussion was for professional communicators to “share news about their work and upcoming opportunities.” Presenters included an artist from Grand Rapids who illustrates books of the Bible in giant murals as aids for interpretation and Bible study, an author who wrote a book about well-known and lesser-known peacemakers from various social justice causes in recent history (including the American Civil Rights Movement), an independent filmmaker who produced so far the only film focusing on the challenges of living as a Sikh in America, a pair of former journalists who started a small book publisher for producing heirloom books for families and churches (rather than books that will be marketed and sold), and two representatives of WISDOM who described the purpose of the organization and its calendar of upcoming events.

A representative of the Interfaith Leadership Council of Metropolitan Detroit (IFLC) also spoke about that organization’s recent happenings, and Mr. Crumm invited any attendees with special news or recent accomplishments to discuss them.

Near the end of the meeting, Mr. Crumm invited me, the only attendee who’d previously never had any connection to this circle or the organizations it represents, to introduce myself to the group. I said my name, told everyone I just graduated from Madonna University, I currently work as a writing tutor, and would like to get into the publishing industry as an editor, and maybe continue my education so I can become qualified as a college writing professor.

I also said that I wish to get more involved in interfaith and diversity initiatives and networking in southeastern Michigan, and I will encourage other communicators and artists I know to come to the next meeting.

As a recent graduate, I didn’t know how to start making connections with people in the fields I’m interested in. It’s one thing to look up potential employers online, and send them résumés and introductory messages by e-mail; it’s far more effective to find out about events and groups where we can actually meet such people in person, without the pressure of the encounter’s purpose being to ask the person for a job.

It was pointed out at this meeting that many writers, visual artists, and other communicators who have potential and talent don’t know how to get in touch with the people who could best use their talents. Likewise, people who want special projects done, such as documentary films, aren’t sure how to connect with people who can do these projects for them. That’s where networking organizations come in handy: If you don’t have fifty to a few hundred dollars to lay down for yearly dues at an organization such as the International Association of Business Communicators, you can start by investigating free networking opportunities, such as the Michigan Professional Communicators.

After the meeting, Mr. Crumm extended the invitation to join him and his wife Amy for lunch. Excited by the prospect of not just being able to ask these impressive people more questions about publishing, copyediting, and professional writing, but of getting to have more informal personal conversation with them as friends, I joined the Crumms and a few others in the DIA Café.

Between the three-hour meeting and the one-hour lunch, I felt I got more tips and made more connections to help me on my way to preparing for my eventual writing, editing, or academic career than I did by quick introductions and handing out résumés at three job fairs I attended my last semester. Not only were all the people I met at the MPC meeting veteran communicators with a lot of good advice for a newcomer, they were all very supportive and welcoming—especially Mr. Crumm, whom I’ve since shared frequent e-mails with regarding my Friendship & Faith story, and about professional communication in general.

I hope to see all the people I met there, as well as more new people, at the next meeting. If after reading this, you think you’d be interested in attending an upcoming meeting, let me know—I want to get the word out about the group and the organizations and initiatives it represents, to help connect more communicators with people who can help them learn how to market and share their talents.

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The Michigan Professional Communicators meeting is part of the Interfaith Leadership Council of Metropolitan Detroit, and is held once every two months.

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Illustration by Karla Joy Huber, 2004; marker, colored pencil, watercolor, metallic gel pen, flower petal