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Karen Armstrong's 'Twelve Step' Program
January 21, 2011
There is no hurry. Progress is slow. And don’t expect change overnight. But if you follow the 12 steps Karen Armstrong suggests, she says you’ll be well on your way to breaking a profound addiction: selfishness. Like any good self-help program, the steps increase in difficulty, building from ‘learn about compassion’ to ‘love your enemies.’ And like any important practice, it is a struggle that lasts a lifetime.

Karen Armstrong, author of "Twelve Steps To A Compassionate Life"

Credit: Wikimedia CommonsGender and Judaism at the Western Wall

Begins at 22 min 30 sec

The Western Wall is the holiest site in Judaism, the spot where Jews have gone to pray and mourn for 2,000 years. It is segregated by gender, though not very equally. On the smaller, women’s side, worshippers cannot sing too loudly, read from the Torah or wear a prayer shawl. Rabbi Sue Morningstar tells us how she is trying to change long-held attitudes about gender at the Western Wall.

Pictured: The wall's Mechitza, or partition dividing men and women.  

Rabbi Sue Morningstar, an international vice chair for Rabbis For Women of the Wall

 

Credit: Lisa RossJoy Ladin: The Other Side of The Wall

Begins at 40 min 30 sec

In 2002, Jay Ladin went to the men's side of the Western Wall to pray with his son. Six years later he returned — this time as his true self: a woman named Joy. This is Joy’s story: of faith and family, gender and space, of a journey from male to female. This reading is an excerpt from her memoir, "Who Will Be: A Woman in the Act of Becoming."  

Joy Ladin, poet and a professor of English at Yeshiva University's Stern College for Women