Michael Lerner - Revolutionary Love ; A Political Manifesto to Heal and Transform the World

The publisher and the University of California Press Foundation gratefully acknowledge the generous support of the S. Mark Taper Foundation Imprint in Jewish Studies.

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 bookand 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

In Revolutionary Love, Rabbi Michael Lerner provides a great theoretical and political service. No one that I am aware of does a better job of using love as a theoretical tool to address these issues and suggest what a politics based on a love of the other might look like. This book is not merely innovativeit is groundbreaking in its scope, depth of scholarship, insight, and originality.

Henry Giroux, Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar in Critical Pedagogy, McMaster University

Rabbi Lerner is no innocent romantic about love. His call for a new bottom line is of immense importance not only for my colleagues and students in the Christian and Jewish worlds but for all in the United States, Canada, and Europe who are seeking a path out of the narrow materialist, ultra-individualist, and competitive-acquisitive approach to politics that has severely limited the appeal of both Left and Right in the Western world. This book must be required reading for every opinion maker, every spiritual leader, every political leader, every college student hoping to understand American politics, and any citizen hoping to avoid the drift in Western societies toward reactionary nationalism, fascism, and the destruction of the life-support system of Earth.

Walter Brueggemann, William Marcellus McPheeters Professor Emeritus of Old Testament, Columbia Theological Seminary

Love is the thread that connects and heals us all. Rabbi Michael Lerners Revolutionary Love shows us a meaningful path toward healing our hearts, minds, souls, society, and planet. Highly recommended.

Dean Ornish, MD, Founder and President, Preventive Medicine Research Institute, and Clinical Professor of Medicine at University of California, San Francisco

Revolutionary Love is a much-needed antidote to todays hardball politics of cynicism and self-interest ber alles. Drawing from Rabbi Michael Lerners spiritual wisdom and lifetime of social activism, it provides a treasury of practical tools to counter the drift to domination and violence and to build a more caring and sustainable society for us all.

Riane Eisler, President of the Center for Partnership Studies and author of The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economics

Michael Lerner is a tough-minded, bold, and intellectually brilliant writer and speaker. Read this book, and he will show you that survival as a nation and a planet depends on not being so embarrassed by the concept of love that you dismiss it as too soft. It isnt. He spells out a detailed plan for a new way of living in which love is taken seriously and soberly. I feel that my brain cells, speaking metaphorically, have been rearranged by this energetic book that inspires with its clarity and visionary power.

Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul: A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life

This visionary and hopeful books argument for the fusion of love, compassion, and politics counters narrowly economistic progressivism, narcissistic spirituality, and the reigning forces of oppression. Its model of respect and care should be widely read, widely discussed, andbecause it would work beautifully in the classroomwidely taught.

Roger S. Gottlieb, author of Morality and the Environmental Crisis

Bringing together the critical with the theological in purposeful and humanitarian ways, this book benefits from Lerners evident passion. It is sufficiently grounded in a number of the philosophical debates and does a very good job of proposing love as something that can have real and tangible effects.

Brad Evans, coauthor of Histories of Violence: Post-War Critical Thought

Revolutionary Love

A Political Manifesto to Heal and Transform the World

RABBI MICHAEL LERNER

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu.

University of California Press

Oakland, California

2019 by Michael Lerner

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Lerner, Michael, 1943 author.

Title: Revolutionary love : a political manifesto to heal and transform the world / Rabbi Michael Lerner.

Description: Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2019] Includes bibliographical references and index. |

Identifiers: LCCN 2019017920 (print) | LCCN 2019021719 (ebook) | ISBN 9780520973138 (ebook and ePDF) | ISBN 9780520304505 (cloth : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH : Politics, PracticalUnited States. | Right and left (Political science)United States. | Interpersonal relationsPolitical aspectsUnited States. | Conduct of lifePolitical aspects.

Classification: LCC JK 1726 (ebook) | LCC JK 1726 . L 47 2019 (print) | DDC 320.6dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019017920

Manufactured in the United States of America

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For Cat Zavis, my partner, wife, and empathic guide through a challenging period

And for those who seek a world of love and generosity

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am grateful to Niels Hooper for his helpful editorial advice, to Susan Whitlock and Kathleen MacDougall for editing this entire book, and to the staff of the University of California Press for their assistance in publishing this book. Im also grateful to the staff of Tikkun magazine, including Chris Philpot, Chantal Tom, Andrew Hiyama, Hannah Arin, Madison Wheeler, and Robin Kopf, and to Tikkun Institute Fellow Ben Case for their contributions to the editing of this book.

Everything in this book has been mightily influenced by my personal mentors, Abraham Joshua Heschel and Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, and by the teachings of Richard Lichtman, Herbert Marcuse, Wilhelm Reich, Thich Nhat Hanh, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Omid Safi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Pope Francis, Carol Gilligan, Arthur Waskow, Michael Sandel, Michelle Alexander, Richard Sennett, Erich Fromm, Marianne Williamson, Harvey Cox, and James Cone. In addition, I have relied on the writings of many contemporary feminists, including Judith Plaskow, Rachel Adler, Susannah Heschel, Marge Piercy, Catherine Keller, and Tirzah Firestone. And I am grateful to the many hundreds of authors of articles in Tikkun magazine and to the dozens of interns and the evolving staff of Tikkun (and before that the staff of the Institute for Labor and Mental Health), all of whom contributed to the development and refinement of these ideas and the research on which they are based.