Peter Beinart’s Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza occasioned my latest immersion in the tragic violence between Jews, Christians and Muslims in Israel/Palestine. The book focuses on divisions within the Jewish community itself, and while the rifts are profound, the light of truth shines through his heroic reckoning with the state of Israel. Jewish prophetic self-criticism promises a new story and liberation from the myth of supremacy.

Finally, I have written recently about alternative ways of working together that embody economic democracy. Guided by the writings of Joerg Rieger, I want to explore further the spirituality of labor organization. For much of my adult life, I was a volunteer living in solitude, but now I’m a tax-paying wage earner. Praying with workers, including many Spanish-speaking immigrant workers, gives me fresh experiences to ponder. Is “spirituality” only available to us when we get off work? Is God like a boss or like a fellow worker?

If Jesus was a construction worker and a community organizer, how might he deal with wage theft, wage depression, union busting, and a concentration of wealth among the one percent? Pilate’s and Caesar’s empire was less plutocratic and kleptocratic than our own. As America drifts into Divided States, divided families and communities subject to gun violence and ICE abductions, where is the mysterious common ground?

How about the workplace? We spend so much time there, and ninety-nine percent of us have to be there, whether we’re white collar, blue collar, BIPOC, straight or gay. We’re all dealing with a system that treats labor as a liability to be exploited rather than an asset, a community to be honored and empowered. Can we find deep solidarity as workers?

So for now, I hope you will read Harper’s “The Virtues of Solitude” and visit Unlock the Box Campaign and Solitary Watch to learn more about the injustice of solitary confinement.

If you can’t read Beinart’s book, then I recommend his conversations with Rabbi Dr. Ismar Schorsch and former speaker of the Knesset Avrum Burg. The conversations led me to a strange state of deep grief and relief. These devout Jews offer prophetic lamentation, but hearing such heartbreaking truth spoken aloud brings relief from the shallower, strident debates that leave us exhausted and dispirited. We need to hear the cries of broken hearts, not talking heads, before we can begin a new and healing story.

If you are interested in economic democracy and a humanizing spirituality of work, consider Joerg Rieger’s works, or read a provocative article on implementing a maximum wage by Celeste Pepitone-Nahas. But beware: the author describes a policy instituted in Portland, Oregon, a city the president considers “war-ravaged.” Portland also “recorded the steepest drop in violent crime among all sixty-eight participating U.S. agencies during the first half of 2025” according to Portland.gov.