The Summer of Love was a social phenomenon that occurred during the summer of 1967, when as many as 100,000 people, mostly young people sporting hippie fashions of dress and behavior, converged in San Francisco's neighborhood of Haight-Ashbury.[1][2] More broadly, the Summer of Love encompassed the hippie music, hallucinogenic drugs, anti-war, and free-love scene throughout the West Coast of the United States, and as far away as New York City.[3][4]
Freedom To Love 1969
A new concept of celebrations beneath the human underground must emerge, become conscious, and be shared, so a revolution can be formed with a renaissance of compassion, awareness, and love, and the revelation of unity for all mankind.[13]
Much could be written about all the ways God fit the puzzle pieces together over the next few months, leading Paul and Carol to bump up their summer 1970 wedding date to Dec. 27, 1969. (Paul said the astronomical long-distance phone bills played a role in the date change.)
The 1960s wrought enormous cultural change. The United States that entered the decade looked and sounded little like the one that left it. Rebellion rocked the supposedly hidebound conservatism of the 1950s as the youth counterculture became mainstream. Native Americans, Chicanos, women, and environmentalists participated in movements demonstrating that rights activism could be applied to ethnicity, gender, and nature. Even established religious institutions such as the Catholic Church underwent transformations, emphasizing freedom and tolerance. In each instance, the decade brought substantial progress and evidence that activism remained fluid and unfinished.
The essence of love consists in this, that consciousness surrenders itself, forgets itself in another self, and nevertheless, through this very surrender and forgetfulness of self, attains for the first time to the full passion of self. This mediation of the spirit with itself and the development thereof leads to a complete totality in the absolute.16
[This Haggadah was actually used in a Freedom Seder held on the third night of Passover, April 4, 1969, the first anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King, in the basement of a Black church in Washington DC. About 800 people took part, half of them Jews, the rest Black and white Christians.
Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe! who hast made of one earth, one flesh all the peoples of the world, who didst exalt Mankind by breathing the life of the mind and the love of freedom into him, who didst sanctify us so that we might know and say what was holy and profane, what was freedom and what slavery. Blessed art thou, 0 Lord our God, who with love has allowed us to give ourselves and thee solemn days for joy, festivals and seasons for gladness. Blessed art thou, 0 Lord our God, who didst allow Israel to imagine this day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the season of our freedom, a holy convocation, a memorial of the departure from Egypt. Blessed art thou, 0 Lord! who sanctifiest Mankind, freedom, Israel, and the seasons.
Blessed art thou, 0 Lord our God, King of the Universe who makest a distinction between holy and holy: between the holiness of this festival and that of the Sabbath; between the holiness of light and the holiness of darkness; between the holiness of the Jewish people and the holiness of other peoples. Blessed art thou, 0 Lord, who hast made all peoples holy and hast commanded us, even against our will, to become a beacon for justice and freedom for them all.
"He found, first, that slaves often spend as much time and energy fighting each other as they do fighting their common oppressors, and second, that slaves do not always welcome their deliverers. They get accustomed to being slaves. Even after they have been freed, if freedom brings hardship, they may want to go back 'to the fleshpots of Egypt.'
"And the proof that God had entered into Moses, and that Moses had really been converted, was that he had to go back and identify himself with his enslaved people'organize them into Brickmakers 'Union Number One'and lead them out of hunger and slavery into freedom and into 'a good land, and a large, a land flowing with milk and honey.'
"To be religious, the Hebrews discovered, is to get out of Egypt into Canaan; to refuse to be slaves or contented draft-horses; to build brotherhood in freedombecause that is what men, the children of God, were created to do!
Thus wrote the prophet Muste. But many men have seen the Passover as a time to think deeply on other aspects of the question of freedom and the relation of Man and God. They have thought, and they have talked-for the Passover is a time of talking, of conversing, of exchanging thoughts. And thus is it related of Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Joshua, Rabbi Elazar the son of Azariah, Rabbi Akiba, and Rabbi Tarfon, that they once met on the night of Passover in Bene Berak and continued discoursing of the departure from Egypt so far into the night that they forgot what time it was till their students came and said, "Teachers, it is already time to read the morning Shema."
The wise child asks: What mean those testimonies, statutes, and judgments, which the Lord our God hath commanded us? Then shall thou instruct him in all the laws of the Passover: even such details as the law that after the paschal lamb no dessert ought to be brought to the table. And as part of instruction in the laws, you shall discuss with him the nature of freedom and justice, and he shall begin to work out his own ideas of the meaning of the Passover. Together with him you may write and live a new Haggadah from year to year.
The simple child asks: What is this? And then shalt thou tell him: We are remembering that a long time ago, in another country, when we and our families were forced to work for other people as slaves, we became free men with the help of the Lord; and we are celebrating our freedom.
But as for the child who is too young to ask questions himself, you should yourself begin to explain without waiting for him to ask, as it is said, And thou shalt tell thy son on that day, saying, this is done because of that which the Lord did for us, when we went forth from Egypt. For out of death, and sorrow, and slavery, he gave us life, and joy, and freedom; and so, tonight we remember both the death and the life; both the sorrow and the joy; both the slavery and the freedom. To remember the sorrow, we eat bitter herbs; to celebrate in joy, we drink sweet wine. And we sing of life because we love you!
Mount Seir for his possession; and Jacob and his children went down into Egypt. And there Jacob's children and his children's children became slaves unto Pharaoh; but they remembered me and clove fast to my promise of justice; and I remembered them.
Blessed be he, who preserves his promise unto Israel; blessed be the Most Holy, who foresaw the end of the captivity, that he might perform what he had promised to our father Abraham, between the parts, as is said: And he said unto Abraham, know for certain, that thy seed shall be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them, and they shall afflict them four hundred years. And also that nation whom they shall serve, will I judge; and they shall afterwards go forth with great joy and a new freedom, with food and tools and clothing sufficient to make a decent life, and with a law of justice for all.
And it is this same promise, of life and freedom, which has been the support of our ancestors, and of us also; for not one only has risen up against us, but in every generation there are some who rise up against us, to annihilate us; but the Most Holy, blessed be he, has delivered us out of their hands.
But let us also remember the lesson of the plagues: the winning of freedom has not always been bloodless in the past. Through the generations, our prophets, our rabbis, and our shoftimmen like Micah who spoke the word of God directly to the kings and the people, men like Hillel who worked out the law of justice in daily life, and revolutionary leaders or "judges" like Gideonhave faced the issue of violence in the struggle for freedom.
The struggle was not bloodless in our own generationwhen the prophet Bob Moses wrote, "We are smuggling this note from the drunk tank of the county jail in Magnolia, Mississippi. Later on, Hollis will lead out with a clear tenor into a freedom song, Talbert and Lewis will supply jokes, and McDew will discourse on the history of the black man and the Jew.
"McDewa black by birth, a Jew by choice, and a revolutionary by necessityhas taken on the deep hates and deep loves which America and the world reserve for those who dare to stand in a strong sun and cast a sharp shadow. This is Mississippi, the middle of the iceberg. Hollis is leading off with his tenor, 'Michael row the boat ashore. Alleluia;
No, the moments of resistance have not been bloodless. The blood of tyrants and the blood of freemen has watered history. But we may not rest easy in that knowledge. The freedom we seek is a freedom from blood as well as a freedom from tyrants. It is incumbent upon us not only to remember in tears the blood of the tyrants and the blood of the prophets and martyrs, but to end the letting of blood. To end it, to end it!
For as one of the greatest of our prophets, whose own death by violence at a time near the Passover were member in tears tonightas the prophet Martin Luther King called us to know: "The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers. But the principle of nonviolent resistance seeks to reconcile the truths of two opposites-acquiescence and violence. The nonviolent resister rises to the noble height of opposing the unjust system while loving the perpetrators of the system. Nonviolence can reach men where the law can not touch them. Sowe will match your capacity to inflict suffering with our capacity to endure suffering. We will not hate you, but we cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws. And in winning our freedom we will so appeal to your heart and conscience that we will win you in the process." 2ff7e9595c
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