Heal and Transform the World -- Internship at Tikkun Magazine and the Interfaith (and atheist-welcoming) Network of Spiritual Progressives

Are you worried about climate change and upset about how the destruction of our environment is threatening our collective future? Are you outraged by the amount of power that corporations and the top 1% of wealthy people have over U.S. politics and our lives? Do you want to build a future in which "homeland security" is achieved through ending global poverty rather than through the military invasion of other countries?

If so, come intern with the Network of Spiritual Progressives (NSP), an interfaith organization that is also welcoming to spiritual-but-not-religious atheists and agnostics. The Network of Spiritual Progressives is closely affiliated with Tikkun Magazine. Tikkun is a Hebrew word which means "healing, repair and transformation." Interns work on outreach supporting spiritual activism intended to effect tikkun olam (healing of the world) at the local and national level. Interns will help us build a network community of dedicated spiritual activism practitioners and to construct the electronic home for that community as it grows. To get a sense of our organization, read Tikkun magazine's home page, and then read the core vision of the NSP at www.spiritualprogressives.org. The fullest way to understand our approach is to read Rabbi Michael Lerner's 2006 national best-seller: The Left Hand of God—Taking Back our Country from the Religious Right, and his 2012 book Embracing Israel/Palestine: A Strategy for Middle East Peace (you can read about this one at www.tikkun.org/EIP and see why it has been endorsed by former US President Jimmy Carter, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and many others).

We are currently seeking spring interns to start in January 2013 and summer 2013 interns to start in May or June and Fall 2013-Spring 2014 to start in late August or early September 2013.

Possible projects to work on include:

• Political organizing, research, and development for a Global Marshall Plan to end global poverty. In Spring 2010 Rep. Keith Ellison introduced a House Resolution calling for such a plan, which would involve the United States leading the G-20 countries in dedicating 1–2 percent of their GDP each year for the next twenty to once and for all end global and domestic poverty, homelessness, hunger, inadequate education, and inadequate health care, as well as repair the global environment. Interns who work on this project educate and seek endorsements of public officials, seek signatures of endorsement from the public, and seek potential donors or supporters to increase public awareness and institutional mobilization behind the GMP. Or you can work on developing some of the details of how the Global Marshall Plan will work. Read the plan at www.tikkun.org/GMP

• Political organizing to support an ESRA--Environmental and Ethical Responsibility Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that unequivocally bans ALL private donations (form corporations or individuals) and requires public funding only of national and state elections, requires corporations with incomes over $100 million to get a new corporate charter every five years which they can only get by proving a satisfactory history of environmental and social responsibility to a jury of ordinary citizens, and requires environmental education at every educational level from kindergarten through college through graduate and professional schools. Read the ESRA at www.tikkun.org/ESRA

• Working with Rabbi Michael Lerner on "Spiritual Progressive Limmud": preparing a weeklong study session of spiritual progressive ideas and texts and a national celebration of a politics based on love, generosity, kindness, awe, and wonder at the grandeur of the universe. Help us with logistics, publicity, and program.

• Trainings, Web development, and network outreach to support the Network of Spiritual Progressives and its interfaith mission of supporting spiritual activism intended to effect tikkun olam (healing of the world) at the local and national level. Read our Core Vision at www.spiritualprogressives.org or Rabbi Michael Lerner's book The Left Hand of God.

• Working directly with Tikkun's head editor on projects including Israel-Palestine, events and concerns relevant to the Tikkun Community, outreach to the Jewish community, and intellectual research.

• Working on spiritual Torah commentary: help create a spiritually based and politically progressive synagogue in Berkeley, and on researching spiritual commentaries on each week's Torah portions. Rabbi Lerner is editing a Spiritual Torah Commentary for publication within the next five to six years.