Rabbi Michael Lerner, religious and political visionary, dies at 81

Rabbi Michael Lerner - Cropped.
(Image by Wikipedia (commons.wikimedia.org), Author: B Hartford J Strong from Oakland, California, USA)   Details   Source   DMCA

Rabbi Michael Lerner considered himself a prophet in the tradition of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel. And like those prophets, he believed his life’s mission was to convince people, especially Jews, that we were on the wrong path, focused too much on individualism and materialism and not enough on revelation and the power of love.

Lerner, who died Wednesday in Berkeley at 81, was a key voice in the Jewish Renewal movement, seeking to create a Judaism centered on the God of liberation, transformation and hope that he found in the Passover story. Regarding Israel, Lerner believed in a Zionism of compassion, with a solution for both Jews and Palestinians. A radical in his youth, Lerner later advocated for a politics of meaning that he believed would bridge the left-right divide and lead to a more just economic system around the world.