Soul Man

I wanted to write a book to guide people who spend most of their lives in what I call "commodity time." Not enough people are experiencing the wonderful possibilities that are available in natural, organic time, in sacred time. So that was one of the reasons that I felt this was important to write. It is a book for universalists: Jews who care for the planet and then they wonder, what do you need to be a Jew for? They have embraced so much of the general culture. They would like to have a good family life, a good spiritual life. And so the question was: If I'm so universal, why should I be Jewish? That is the starting point for many of the people for whom this book is written.

And the answer that I've been working on for quite a while had to do with my understanding of the Gaian hypothesis-which is to say that the planet is a living being, and we are all parts, cells of that living being. And when you are in such a situation, you have to be integral to the planet. And then the question comes up, what do we do with the gentiles?

Each religion is like a vital organ. If you're integral to the planet, it is really important to be the best Jews that you can be. If we are a healthy, vital organ of the planet, then the rest of the world will be able to heal, too. Since I've had ecumenical dialogue with Hindus, Buddhists, Confucionists, Taoists, Christians of all sorts, Muslims, it was getting very clear that with so many of the people I had a kinship, such that I didn't even have to apologize. I didn't have to be ashamed to say that I love God. And once people are in that situation that they too feel that they have that kind of kinship, then a lot of things happen in what I call spiritual intimacy.

That's exactly the point. Today's Jews come from there. I taught at Naropa Univeristy [a university in Boulder, Colorado, founded by Tibetan Buddhist monks, where Rabbi Schachter-Shalomi held the World Wisdom Chair until his retirement in 2004]. I found quite a number of Jews there; I would say the representation of Jews at Naropa and other such places is quite great.

I think there is a great deal of dissatisfaction with the status quo of what goes under the name of "organized Judaism" in the United States. The people who have woken up to any level of awareness are wondering what are they doing there in the shul [synagogue]. It's not doing anything for them.

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