by Dr. David Sanders
A prominent theme in Kabbalah over the past 500 years has been the rebalancing of masculine and feminine energies on a communal level. At first this was presented only as a theoretical or as something that might need to wait until messianic times. The ascendency of the male in society was acknowledged as a reality that would be difficult to change. It remained aspirational until women in the western world loosened themselves from the oppressiveness of the patriarchal mindset and set their own mores and a demand for an overdue respect. Sadly, as is often the case with evolutionary change, there is backsliding. It is not easy for those in power to relinquish their status and when feeling threatened add weight to ensure that the scales of equality remain imbalanced.
In a course I taught on Democracy and Kabbalah this spring, we looked at Kabbalistic texts promoting the need for a rebalancing of the masculine and feminine and then assessed where we are today. We found comments such as this one from the 2023 United States Summit for Democracy reflective of the challenges faced by women in the 21st century:
“Today’s dual phenomena of eroding democracy and resurgent nationalism are creating new incentives for authoritarian leaders to inject hostility toward women’s rights into their propaganda narratives and policy platforms.” (Colleen Scribner, full article)
The conference was led by Vice President Kamala Harris, who opened the conference by declaring that “the status of women is the status of democracy.” (full article)
When the course was over, some students asked how to translate our study into action. How could we as citizens build awareness of the link between women’s rights and democracy? We lit upon the idea of producing a music video, one of those that could go viral, with a clear message on how integral women’s right are to a functioning democracy.
It has now been five weeks since we started to get this project off the ground. Two of our Kabbalah Experience students, Judy Armstrong and Joyce Lisbin, and I came up with an acronym for our working group: WAGA and set up a website to empower women WAGAvote.com. While WAGA initially stood for Women and All Gender Alliance we have now come to enjoy We Are Great Already. We are pleased how far we have already come toward the launch of the video onto social media. There remain challenges to get this done in the timeline we want. but we are amazed at the progress to complete the task. We are just three people, but we have found by reaching out to our network of friends, we have identified the talents needed to complete the project. It has been one Kabbalah Experience after another.
Today at 6:30 pm we are raising awareness, inviting participation and soliciting funders at the coffee shop, Hooked on Colfax. If you have interest in getting involved come join us. When we collectively pull this off, it will be a testament to what we aspire to at KE: putting study into practice. In this case, a personal passion project for me and two KE students is following a path women have chosen: connecting and collaborating for the betterment of others.
You can visit WAGAvote.com for more information on how to get involved and click here for the audio track and lyrics to the song “We are the Women.”
0 Comments