Shalom Crafter
Contact
  • My Blog
  • Spirit of the Galilee
  • Wilderness Leadership Academy
  • About
  • My Writings
  • Federal Republic of the Holy Land
  • Praying Together in Jerusalem
  • Holy Land Olive Wood Judaica
  • Jewish Educational Philosophy
  • Microphones for Peace
  • Interfaith Liberation Theology
  • Perennial Kabbalah
  • Contact
  • Pictures

Spirit of the Galilee - Interreligious Beit Midrash - Sheikh Ghassan Manasra speaks about the place of prayer

11/17/2020

0 Comments

 
0 Comments

Church & Academy Seminar

11/17/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
The Diocese of Glasgow & Galloway hosts a monthly seminar on Theology & Religious Studies at Glasgow University

The November Seminar will take place via Zoom on Tuesday 24th November at 5:30pm. The speaker will be Rabbi Raanan Mallek, a scholar, educator, and religious leader in the Masorti (Conservative) denomination of Judaism. He is currently the movement's municipal Rabbi of the Misgav region in Galilee, the executive director of the Galilee Foundation for Value Education, a member of the World Council of Churches International Reference Group and was a Board Member of Rabbis for Human Rights for the past five years.

​Rabbi Mallek has for many years been pioneering work in peacebuilding, interfaith relations, and human rights activism in Israel-Palestine and internationally. He brings to these issues both a profound and costly commitment, and a depth of rabbinic scholarship; he was recently published via Brill and additional writings of his may be read here. In 2017, Rabbi Mallek was identified by the World Council of Churches as one of the Twelve Faces of Hope in Israel-Palestine.

0 Comments

Leviticus Torah Portion: A Kingdom of Priests

3/29/2020

0 Comments

 
By Rabbi Raanan Mallek

Posted on March 27, 2020 by Rabbis for Human Rights for their Weekly Torah Portion

As we begin to read the Book of Leviticus, we begin to think about the role that priests had among the Israelites. While it is true that the priesthood of the people of Israel was hereditary to the descendants of Aharon, we all feel connected to the idea of a priesthood through verses such as:

“’You shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the children of Israel” (Exodus 19:6).

How many of us really know the meaning of the term ‘kingdom of priests and a holy nation’? Do we need to take responsibility at some level to be recognized as such by the rest of the nations? Preceding this verse is a conditional statement:

“Now then, if you will obey Me faithfully and keep My covenant, you shall be My treasured possession among all the peoples. Indeed, all the earth is Mine” (Exodus 19:5).

Rabbi Elazar (Yalkut Shimoni 959:36): “Greater is one who does righteousness and justice than one who has sacrificed all the sacrifices as is said: ‘To do what is right and just is more desired by the Lord than sacrifice’” (Proverbs 21:3). The importance of “doing righteousness and justice” is greater in the eyes of the Lord than even the one who makes all the sacrifices in a perfect way as described by the Book of Leviticus. And therefore, before we think about how to build the Temple today, we should instead be focusing on how to build a society based on justice.

Building such a society requires empathy for the most vulnerable of those living among us. It is natural to forget after two thousand years that the Hebrew word גר “Ger” does not only refer to those who convert to Judaism (“Ger Tzedek“), but also to a ‘resident stranger’ (“Ger Toshav“).

In the Babylonian Talmud (Avodah Zara 64b) it says:

Who is a ger toshav? It is anyone who has accepted upon himself before three ḥaverim, i.e., people devoted to the meticulous observance of mitzvot, especially halakhot of ritual purity, teruma, and tithes, not to worship idols. This is the statement of Rabbi Meir. And the Rabbis say: Anyone who has accepted upon himself observance of the seven mitzvot that the descendants of Noah accepted upon themselves is a ger toshav.

Maimonides in his Responsa 448 explains that Islam as a religion is an example of pure monotheism. Basing himself upon this decision, Rabbi Menachem Meiri (1249-1315) says that, “There are those who say that the Ishmaelites (Muslims) are not idolators and that they should be related to as Ger Toshav.”

A week ago, I published two articles in a peer reviewed academic journal called Brill. The articles were based on the work that I did at the Schechter Rabbinical Seminary showing that the halakhic status of non-Jews in the land of Israel can contribute to peace building; that this in an example for how religion can act as a force which contributes to peacebuilding instead of conflict. A comprehensive analysis of the term Ger Toshav leads directly to the legitimization of non-Jews as equal citizens according to Jewish Law.

Upon getting to the heart of the Book of Leviticus, we will read the following verses:
The Ger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I the Lord am your God (Leviticus 19:34).

Those in Israel who advocated and legislated the passing of the Nation-State of the Jewish People Law must ask what it means to be “Jewish.” It can be clearly understood that the Jewish civil ethic is to treat every non-Jewish resident of the land as they would treat their Jewish counterpart in every way. For as another part of Leviticus reinforces:

You shall have one law for Ger and citizen alike: for I the Lord am your God (Leviticus 24:22).

The process of building such a society built on righteousness and justice requires that all sectors be in dialogue. Essential questions that will seed our eventual success can be asked such as: How do we build a society that accepts diversity without erasing the uniqueness of each other? This question cannot be answered only within Jewish society. We have a duty to involve everyone who lives with us here. Here in the Galilee, we are blessed with widespread interreligious and multicultural representation due to the variety of populations that exist within it. As a representative microcosm of Israeli society, the Galilee can lead the way forward.

If we leave the religious world, there are also scientists who understand the need for shared society. Dr. Eilat Shavit, a senior lecturer in the philosophy of science at the Tel-Hai College, says that Israeli society can only exist and thrive when its different parts are able to be in connection and embrace symbiosis. “We have a lot to learn from life in nature, where the most important thing is to recognize the diversity and symbiosis that exist between different entities that need each other to survive.” As the world responds to the coronavirus disease, we see that sharing information from various sources is helpful in seeking a vaccine and a way to be resilient as we discover anew how to live in a way that is conscious of the other among us.

Like education and health, building a shared society requires dedicated resources. That is why I am renewing the Galilee Foundation for Value Education here in Misgav. The foundation will create a space for Jewish and Arab youth to learn leadership skills in the outdoors and be in dialogue with the guidance of experts in conflict resolution from around the world. Leadership studies in nature will bring both sides together to see a common path towards a shared society where justice is at its core.

Blessings of health and Shabbat Shalom.

Rabbi Raanan Mallek is the Masorti Rabbi of the Misgav municipality in the Galilee, community Rabbi of Shorashim and a board member of Rabbis for Human Rights.
0 Comments

My articles have been published in the peer reviewed academic journal Brill

3/17/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
I am excited to announce that my articles have been published by Brill in this volume called Jews in Dialogue.

Please click here to see more details about the publication: https://brill.com/view/title/55904
0 Comments

Interreligious Dialogue as Diplomacy at Limmud Vancouver 2020

2/27/2020

0 Comments

 
Click below for the presentation:
Picture

0 Comments

Light Upon Light: An Evening of Interreligious Dialogue in Shorashim

10/26/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
Link to the Facebook Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/447910002509797/
 
0 Comments

Garden of Reconciliation

5/3/2019

0 Comments

 
A poem that I wrote for starting my position as Rabbi of a village in the Galilee in Shorashim:

Sun Tzu taught:
Be extremely subtle even to the point of formlessness 
Be extremely mysterious to the point of soundlessness
And therefore you can be the designer of your opponent's fate

Who is this opponent?
Is it an inner opponent that keeps us embedded in a struggle to free our minds?
There is a whole multiverse out there
Full of beings that reach out for you

You have to let them
Find that being that seems farthest from you
The opponent who you may have so declared

And reach for them
Let them guide you in the garden where opposites are reconciled
So that oneness can blossom
0 Comments

Hebrew Lecture and Interreligious Dialogue with Sheikh Ghassan Manasra at the Moriah Synagogue in Haifa - Wed., Apr. 17 19:00-20:30

4/14/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
0 Comments

Shared Ethics - Public Class at the Moriah Synagogue in Haifa

3/19/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
0 Comments

European Academy of Religion - Annual Conference 2019

3/5/2019

0 Comments

 

Jews in Dialogue: Jewish Responses to the Challenges of Multicultural Contemporaneity

The panel aims to explore the Jewish involvement in the interfaith and intercultural dialogue from historical, sociological, and theological perspective It is organised by the Free Ebrei (Online Journal of Contemporary Jewish Identity and Cultural Association) and will present the results of the research published in the volume Jews in Dialogue: Jewish Responses to the Challenges of Multicultural Contemporaneity (part of the Brill subseries “Studies in Jewish HIstory and Culture”). It aiims to encourage conversation among scholars of different backgrounds and exchange of research results in the field of intercultural and interreligious dialogue.
Raanan Mallek (Masorti Rabbi, Israel) - Innovative Halakhic (Traditional Jewish Legal) Approaches to the Non-Jew
Picture
0 Comments
<<Previous



    Archives

    November 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    October 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    November 2018
    September 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    November 2017
    September 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    October 2014
    September 2014
    July 2014

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

    View my profile on LinkedIn
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.