C10: Rebellion

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Our leader

Every good rebellion
needs a leader. Not
someone whom they
can follow mindlessly but rather someone who can
act as our inspiration in that they too took the
revolutionary path in some campaign and dared to say
no. Someone whose picture they can pin on their wall and try and style their hair in a similar manner. Our JAMS revolution too has a leader, although it my be a little difficult to find a picture of Abraham and we dread to think what his hair style may have looked like. Nowadays we are very into icons, images or people that we can idolise, be it Michael Owen, the Spice girls or William Hague. Abraham our true revolutionary pin-up was the original iconoclast, smasher of idols and attacking the accepted concepts and ideas of the age.

It is often said that Abraham is the first Jew. Was there no one before him good enough to take up this role? What about Noah? The whole world was about to be destroyed and yet God saved one man because he was good but yet not good enough to take on the role of the first Jew? There is a big difference between these two Bible characters. However good Noah was, he was no Abraham. God tells Noah the world is to be destroyed and he should build an ark to save himself. Noah's response? "Noah did all God demanded of him".

Not bad but no Abraham. God was going to destroy the town of Sodom and tells Abraham. Abraham's response? "Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Far be it from you to do such a thing, that the innocent and guilty will share the same fate. Shall not the judge of the world deal justly!" Abraham rebelled against God himself. Our iconoclast. Our true rebel leader. "God spoke to Abraham, the first Jew: 'Dare to go against the age, go thine own way!' From the very beginning, God placed Judaism and its adherents in opposition to the age.." (S.R. Hirsch).

So select your own cause and join us. Be bothered and fight for it. This revolution will be coming to an area near you sooner then you may think...

I have a Dream by Martin Luther King

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair I say to you today, my friends, that even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow. I still have a dream. It is a dream deep rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed - we hold it to be self evident that all men are created equal. I have a dream that one day the sons of slaves and former slave owners will be able to sit together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today! …And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every tenement and hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics will be able to join hands and sing: "Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last."

Tikkun Olam

"One important idea that needs to be introduced into our society is a new responsibility, what the Jews call Tikkun Olam (I hope I have pronounced it correctly!) This means a responsibility to mend the world. We are born in to a world that is broken. It is not perfect. It has problems. Problems of discrimination, of abuse, of homelessness. It is not perfect in areas of religion and politics. Yet there is a solution. If everyone were taught the responsibility of Tikkun Olam. They all have a responsibility to mend the world in some way. Just to contribute to the process. Move beyond themselves…."

Former New York Governor Mario Cuomo on the Charlie Rose Talk Show, New York PBS.

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