At a Rainbow Gathering in Turkey, Israelis and Iranians bond.

Rabbi Ohad Ezrahi

One Nation

In the high mountains of Turkey, there was a gathering that some would call miraculous and unbelievable, but seemed for everyone that was there so natural, as if it couldn’t have been any other way.

In those mountains we sat around a campfire, Israelis, Turks, and Persians, about one hundred men and women, young and old. We sang, cooked, ate and laughed, played and danced like best friends, as if we were one nation with no state borders, a nation at peace.

How I Got There

My good friend Gabriel suddenly arrived at my weekly Kabbalah class in TLV. Gabriel has a good sense for pointing to the places in which our society can grow. Therefore, I pay close attention to his suggestions. “Are you coming to Turkey?” he asked me right after the class. “It’s one of the most important things going on right now! We’re meeting with people from Iran, with our Persian brothers. Come!” he tells me. And so a few days later my wife and I find ourselves making our way through a small remote village in the mountains west of Anatolia.

Hours of travel bring us to a small Turkish village so rural that the paths beyond it can only be navigated with a tractor. A villager communicates with us using hand gestures, and takes ten Israelis at a time, crowded into a cart with their camping gear by tractor up the mountain. We climb higher and higher. With each new turn we are sure we have arrived, but who ever chose this place opted for a truly remote location.

Rainbow

The Rainbow Tribe began in the 1960′s in the United States. Rainbow gatherings don’t have a defined structure or leadership. Everything is done for free, and out of good will. People hear about gatherings by word of mouth and arrive from every corner of the world. But in every Rainbow Gathering that you come to you will always be greeted with “Welcome home”…

At gatherings, volunteers build a communal kitchen in the outdoors. They also collect money into a magic hat in which every person contributes what he wants and can, and then supplies are purchased at the nearest town. One day there might be a lot of money in the magic hat and the meal will be especially lavish, and another day there might be little money and the entire circle will feel it in their bellies. Food is divided equally, everyone eating what there is, regardless of how much money one had put in.

During a Rainbow you learn how to be in nature, how to be part of a circle, respect the space of others, and how to sing prayers before meals. You also learn that the work that needs to be done can only be accomplished through good will and joy, and that part of the “work” is also about creating a positive atmosphere. Therefore, if for example you are a musician, you are likely to find yourself making music for people peeling potatoes in the kitchen and this may be your contribution to the community effort.

A few years ago there was an International Rainbow Gathering in Turkey where Israeli friends were surprised to meet Rainbow friends from Iran that challenged all their preconceptions about Persians.

There was a definite feeling that this was a gathering that should be repeated. And that is how we found ourselves having many conversations with new Persian friends and discovering some sophisticated and open minded people with a wonderful sense of humor.

Revelations About Iran

One evening we had a conversation with Istahar (fake name). Istahar told us about the place she grew up in. Her parents used to read Osho to her in Persian, and sometimes translated and published Osho’s materials in Iran.  She grew up in a spiritual house and her parents aspire to create an Osho-style ashram in Iran. According to Istahar, books and other materials pertaining to the spiritual world, yoga and meditation classes, avant-garde theater performances – a whole world of open life reminiscent of the Western spiritual world – exists underground in Iran.

Ishatar told us that it is illegal for a woman in Tehran to wear make-up in public. If a woman is caught wearing make-up she will be arrested by the police and thrown into jail, but many women do it anyway. They will not surrender their right to wear makeup; they go to jail and meet other women who were arrested for the same crime, and then are released after a day or two. The Iran prisons, in her words, have revolving doors – people come and go.

“I’ve been living with my boyfriend for two years now, even though it’s technically forbidden. We have learned how to deceive the government and play the game in order to live the way we want and believe,” she adds.

I have met with peace activist Muslims many times before, but meeting these people from Iran was a pleasant surprise. Unlike other occasions, I felt almost no cultural gap. To my surprise I didn’t meet any suppressed women or chauvinistic men that spoke about peace between nations without knowing how to have peace in their own homes.

Rather I met men that allow the women to be themselves, and spoke to us as friends, without victim or inferiority complexes. It seems to me that these people that live under extreme Islamic occupation passionately desire equality.

Peace Begins Within
Rainbow people know peace is not a political slogan, but something that lives within, something that you project outwardly when you truly seek to live in awareness, without letting fear draw the map of your world.

Next year the gathering will be dedicated to deepening our connection. And, maybe we will even be blessed with a few Palestinians, and rainbow sisters and brothers from Kuwait or Qatar will join the Middle East peace celebrations…People that want to come together to live and be peace. Because, as one of the Persian woman said, “We are the Peace.”

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This article was translated and published by: Essence of Life, Public Benefit Company Ltd

www.eolife.org

Kabalistic principals for living

and working in a healthy community

With Neo-Kabalist Rabbi Ohad Ezrahi*
and members of the Tribal Hebraic Community

• If a community is a living organism – what are the different organs of it and how do they give and receive abundance?
• What are the different qualities of leadership needed?
• How to balance between togetherness and the needs of the individual?
• How to prevent manipulations of power?
• The role of rituals in making sacred energy flow
• The rainbow of empowerment
• How to work wisely with Sexual attractions?
• And more….

The workshop will include teachings, rituals and practices of social and individual tools, combined with sacred live music, wisdom stories and exploration games.

Where: Arawaka, north-east of Santa-Fe

When: July 13^th-14^th

For registration and directions please call 575-421-7713

*Ohad Ezrahi is a Kabalistic spiritual teacher from Israel, an artist, a community leader and a constant student of life’s wisdom. Coming from the world of Radical Kabbala, trained in Torah, Talmud and with vast knowledge in Jewish inner wisdom, he reaches out to people of all nations with the search towards the co-creation of an enlightened society on Planet Earth.  Ezrahi was ordained by the elder of the Jewish Renewal movement – Rabbi Zalman Schakter-Shalomi as a Rabbi and a Spiritual Teacher. He was a scholar in residence at the University of Oregon in the Science, Gender and the Sacred research program. He is also the author of many books and projects including Worlds of Doubt ( a commentary on Job, about certainty and doubt); The Old Shall Be Renewed and the New Shall Be Sanctified (erotic aspects of the Hebraic Temple); Paths of Power (commentary on the  Rabbi Nachman of Braslov story “The Master of Prayer”); The BresLove Cards (based on The Master of Prayer); Whose Afraid of  Lilith (rectification of sexuality and fear in Lurianic Kabbalah); and In the Secrets of Leviathan (with Dr. Micha Ankori) Psycho-Mythology in Jewish Thought. He is also the author of hundreds of articles in contemporary Radical Kabalistic thought (mostly in Hebrew). R. Ohad was the founder of “Hamakom Community” and its Yeshiva-Ashram by the Dead Sea, and of “The School for Love in Kabala”. He is also an artist and his unique photography work is presented in various galleries.

The Hebraic Tribal Way is

• -      Living with the Divine Living Spirit, and not by any set religious dogma.
• -      Drawing upon wisdom and inspiration from ALL the sources of Israel – including Kabala, Magic, Mysticism and Rabbinical Judaism, sources of secular philosophy and paths that were defined in the past as “heresy” or “blasphemy”. The Hebraic Tribal Way is inspired also from ancient Canaanite findings and from our foremothers who were inclusively worshiping the Queen of Heavens.
• -      Renewing rituals and meaningful ceremonies, but not fixing them as dogma. It’s always renewing and responding to the Divine Spirit “live on air”…
• -      Creative. The Hebraic Tribal Way sees art – dance and singing, painting and photography, computer graphics and environmental technology, theater and sacred architecture as unique flowers that flourish in the human soul. These forms are lovingly offered with awe to the Divine – to the One that through us creates reflections to Her wonderful world. The Hebraic Tribal Way sees art not only as Esthetics but as a potential for inner transformation.
• -      Passionate. The Hebraic Tribal Way believes that passion, attraction and Eros spring from a holy source, and that the flames of Love are divine flames “Shalhevet-Yah“. Therefore it does not repress them but to the contrary – praises, sanctifies and rejuvenates in their flow for is a means of celebrating the love of God, Nature and Humanity.
• -      Open to fruitful and meaningful meetings with other religions or spiritual paths, coming from simplicity, with no inferior or superior approach.
• -      Natural and loving nature, therefore ecological – seeking to live rightfully with Mother Earth, respecting the rights of animals to live and die with dignity and joy. The Hebraic Tribal Way aspires to use healthy nutrition for the inner ecology of the individual.
• -      Community oriented. Knowing that it is not good nor is it natural for the human being to live in alienation and separation, but rather to be part of a community or a tribe. Hence, looking to establish communities of all sorts and sizes that support and empower the development of the full potential of each individual – children and grownups.
• -      Peacemaking. Acknowledging the fact that oneness is not sameness – for just as the rainbow, it is made of different shades living side by side in peace, influencing and fertilizing one another – the Hebraic Tribal Way is seeking for ways to transform fear, suspicion and violence to love, trust and playfulness. The Hebraic Tribal Way is aiming to create a culture of peace on a green-blue planet Earth.