Spotlight on CLAL
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Simple Wisdom With Irwin Kula - A Groundbreaking New Public Television Series - Addresses The Challenges Of Daily Life
By Judy Epstein, Director of Public Affairs
Why in this age when there is so much choice does it feel so much harder to live? How is it that in America today we are members of more communities, yet feel so much more alone? Why in a society obsessed with romance do so few of us experience real love? Why at a time when so many of us are seeking spirituality does it seem so hard to find?
In the 21st century, we are presented with more options and challenges than ever before. Yet more people report feeling isolated, insecure, depressed and unhappy. Some turn to fundamentalism, some to self-help, but for most Americans neither alternative provides the answers.
SIMPLE WISDOM, a new public television series with Irwin Kula, a nationally recognized spiritual leader, offers a third alternative. “SIMPLE WISDOM is where religion, self-help and spirituality meet,” says Kula, a cutting-edge thinker, speaker, teacher and rabbi, who has touched the lives of thousands of people across the country. “It is an attempt to bring an ancient wisdom to the challenges of daily life. It looks at our relationship to each other as much as to ourselves.”
Informed by Jewish wisdom, this 13-part weekly, half-hour TV show, nationally distributed and airing in early April, addresses the broad issues and paradoxes of life. Taped in front of a live audience, the series will cover such topics as work, love, money, sex, community, family, the body, forgiveness, connection, conversation, identity, spirituality, and death, and will be available to viewers in most major cities around the U.S.
“In the American marketplace of ideas, we can’t have enough wisdom,” says Kula. “Jewish tradition offers us a perspective on finding answers to life’s problems, but ultimately it leaves it up to the individual to make his or her own choice.” Each episode presents the tensions created by the issues and offers a few practical exercises for daily living. Excerpts include:
- Money—Affluence and poverty generate different questions. When you don’t have enough to take care of yourself and your family, the pressing question is – how do I get what I need? When you are affluent, the question becomes – how do I know what I need? But whatever your financial condition, it easy to confuse your net worth with your self-worth. If you don’t have enough, you begin to think that you are less of a person. If you are affluent, you can easily mistake a good character with a large bank account.
- Family—Family is central to who we are. You can’t escape your family even if you want to, you can’t run away. There are four central truths about life that can be learned through family: you learn forgiveness, how to love and let go, that love is not scarce, and that it is okay to need people. Family teaches that life is about interdependence.
- Sex—We need an ethic that is neither generated by the “fear of sex” school nor the “sex without cost” school. We have to recognize the genuine power of sex and how it can make us feel deeply valued or devalued. What we need is an ethics of expressiveness. The word for sex in Hebrew is yodeah – to know. To know someone – sex offers us one of the most intense forms of communication.
- Forgiveness—The premise in America is: You can’t forgive others until you forgive yourself. In fact, the opposite is true. You can’t forgive yourself until you forgive others. Forgiveness has to be done in relationship. It is a process between people.
- Spirituality—The word spirit in Hebrew is ruach – the wind. It comes from the second verse in the bible – when God created, there was a wind flowing across the world. That life force is what spirit is. All you have to do is be present with an open heart and you’re spiritual. I have one rule for spirituality – take a deep breath and give it some time. Maybe that’s the biggest challenge in America.
- Who Am I—Imagine if we lived as if everybody had infinite value – what would it mean to live from that place? What kinds of choices would we make? And though daily life undermines the credibility of that intuition, we always know deep down what is the right choice. Here’s a hint on how to make the right choice. When you’re wrestling with big decisions, there are always two voices. The fainter voice always needs to be heard.
“For years, through the power of television, Americans have been able to draw from many traditions – Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity,” says Kula. “Jewish wisdom has rarely been brought to the marketplace. It was something to protect, to use to ensure Jewish identity. But today, because of the pluralism and freedom of America, Jewish wisdom can now be offered as a resource for all.”
Irwin Kula, named by both Fast Company magazine and Religion and Ethics Newsweekly (PBS-TV) as a new leader on the American spiritual landscape, is the President of CLAL–The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership. Founded in 1974, CLAL, a central voice for religious pluralism, is a leadership training institute, think tank and resource center.
SIMPLE WISDOM was produced by the Jewish Television Network (JTN). JTN is the only producer and distributor of Jewish television in the United States. It produces a number of series for public television including “New Jewish Cuisine.”
For more information on SIMPLE WISDOM visit the Simple Wisdom Website at www.simple-wisdom.com.
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