WAYS OF PEACE works throughout the year to empower the practices of "just-giving" — simple, regular, and fair.

Like most non-profits, WAYS OF PEACE has been hit hard by the crises of the past year. Until now, we have held off on our own fundraising while supporting other organizations on the front lines of response. LEARN MORE

Now, in the spirit of mutual aid, we are reaching out. As you plan your year-end giving, we hope you will partner with WAYS OF PEACE in the ongoing work of transformation and healing.

Support WAYS OF PEACE with a donation today!

WAYS OF PEACE celebrates Giving Tuesday as the publication anniversary of Generous Justice: Jewish Wisdom for Just-Giving.

And Generous Justice has been updated for these times of crisis!

Our unique Jewish guide to social justice empowerment through personal finance now features a concluding section on "Charity, Clarity, and Solidarity" — along with resources for food justice, "Individual Reparations Accounts," and much more.*

Order Generous Justice TODAY to guide your giving!

*The updated edition of Generous Justice is the only one now available online.

Thich Nhat Hanh, 2019. Photo Credit: Linh Pham, The New York Times

"...and after the hurricane, an earthquake...and after the earthquake, a fire...and after the fire — a still, small voice." (First Kings 19:11-12)

A history professor who has correctly predicted the popular vote of every presidential election since 1984 has done so on the basis of principles derived from the study of natural disasters — especially earthquakes: "Everything we know about elections, we've already stolen from geophysics....Tremors of political change, seismic movements of the voters, volcanic elections, political earthquakes. It's all geophysics anyway."

As so many of us continue to reel from the fallout of current events and their media coverage, this could actually be good news. Lichtman's perspective suggests that we turn our attention away from momentary headlines toward deeper forces, long-term transformation — and our own personal daily choices.

Today is the 94th "Continuation Day" (birthday) of Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Zen master and peace worker known to tens of thousands of followers worldwide simply as Thay (Teacher). He has weathered more than a half-century of exile, the devastation of his homeland, the murders of close friends, and countless setbacks in his continual efforts to alleviate suffering.

Throughout his life, Thich Nhat Hanh has offered a still, small voice of sanity beyond the terrors of our world. Even in his silence following a severe stroke in 2014, Thay continues to offer spiritual guidance through the ways he lives each day fully and mindfully.

What might our communities and our world look like if we spent more time listening for all the still, small voices that can guide us toward the best each of us can be?

What if — beyond despair, rage, and holding our breaths for the next elections — we truly believed that Election Day is every day of our lives? LEARN MORE

In this season of change and uncertainty, may we remain mindful of all our miraculous, daily opportunities to make a world of difference. 

NYC Disaster Morgue, Brooklyn, NY. Photo Credit: Brendan Mcdermid / Reuters

Six months after the first confirmed COVID-19 death in NYC, WAYS OF PEACE returned to the chain link perimeter of the NYC disaster morgue in Sunset Park, Brooklyn — to bear witness to 19 years since the 9/11 attacks and 160 days of our remote vigil for the COVID-19 dead and beyond.

After the World Trade Center attacks, NYC volunteers sustained a vigil at the 9/11 disaster morgue for eight months around the clock. Share the Vigil extends this legacy of bearing witness into our current time of crisis.

Zen teachers sometimes invoke the paradox of a "seamless monument" in this broken world of ripped seams, violence, illness and death. Our 9/11 Share the Vigil witness was part of a nationwide week of memorial-making. Yet our memorial is "seamless" — an invisible awareness sustained over time and space, continually mindful of our connections with all those beyond our power to name. LEARN MORE

Share the Vigil is a "How to Mourn AND Organize" initiative of WAYS OF PEACE.

Emerging from the 9/11/01 disaster relief — and gathering momentum since the 2016 elections — How to Mourn AND Organize brings together timeless wisdom with contemporary best practices to foster progress toward social transformation.

Practicing Tzedakah as Reparations: From Charity to Clarity and Solidarity

Sunday, August 23rd at 1:00 PM Eastern Time on Zoom

WAYS OF PEACE is honored to participate in a nationwide, multi-generational day of learning for racial justice. Rabbi Regina Sandler-Phillips will introduce a time-honored Jewish empowerment process*—accessible to all, regardless of income—connecting historic anti-racist solidarity with contemporary “individual reparations accounts” and diverse movements for social justice. LEARN MORE

This online program is free and open to all, but the WAYS OF PEACE session is limited to 24 participants to facilitate sharing and interaction. If you find that registration is already closed, please contact us to discuss alternative program possibilities!

Eternal Vigilance, One Day at a Time

NYC Disaster Morgue, Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Photo Credit: Justin Heiman / Getty Images

"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance" was often quoted by abolitionist Frederick Douglass. We will discuss the historic solidarity of vigilance committees next Sunday, August 23rd.

WAYS OF PEACE continues to coordinate nationwide, multi-generational vigilance around the clock. We are approaching 135 days of our shared vigil, and always welcome others to join us in honoring all who have died due to to COVID-19, the ravages of racism, and and more during this time of crisis. LEARN MORE

Share the Vigil is a How to Mourn AND Organize initiative of WAYS OF PEACE.

*In our commitment to just-giving, WAYS OF PEACE donates at least 10 percent of net staff compensation to other organizations that uphold our core mandates of renewing justice and kindness across lines of diversity.

 Disaster Morgue Trailers, Brooklyn, NY. Photo Credit: Brendan Mcdermid / Reuters

Before U.S. Memorial Day, Naming The Lost brought together survivors, community activists, artists and faith leaders for a 24-hour reading of names to honor the COVID-19 dead. "One person shared with me that this was the first time their anger paused to mourn, and that it was liberating," reported vigil organizer Rafael Shimunov.

Eighteen years ago this past week, the post-9/11 recovery efforts were brought to a ceremonial close with an empty flag-draped stretcher carried out of Ground Zero. For the previous eight months, the human remains stored in refrigerated trucks outside the NYC medical examiner's office had been accompanied by a pluralistic rotation of more than 200 volunteers, keeping vigil around the clock. 

The unnamed and unclaimed dead will need our care and attention for many, many 24 hours to come. Pausing regularly to mourn the dead can help us continue to liberate our energies more effectively on behalf of the living.

Disaster Morgue Trailers, Brooklyn, NY. Photo Credit: Loudlabs News NYC.

Share the Vigil began at midnight eight weeks ago. We are grateful to all who continue to join this honor guard for the COVID-19 dead — morning, midday, and night — across generations, time zones, and faith traditions.

“I moved from focusing on NYC...to focusing on the whole nation — drawing myself into the middle of the country to connect with all the souls I could."

"We are sitting so that all the souls who are in a liminal space now, awaiting burial, can be tended to with love and care across all time zones."

Find out more here about how you can help to honor the COVID-19 dead on a regular basis:

SHARE THE VIGIL: Frequently Asked Questions

SHARE THE VIGIL: Experiences to Date

As we move through a renewed appreciation for Memorial Day, WAYS OF PEACE also offers blessings for the convergence of spiritual turning points over recent weeks: Vesak for Buddhists, Eid al-Fitr for Muslims, Shavuot for Jews, Pentecost for Christians. 

All of these festival days are sanctified by each precious day of life leading up to them. May we continue to make each day count through this global crisis.

“Share the Vigil” is a How to Mourn AND Organize initiative of WAYS OF PEACE. For more information, please visit Share the Vigil. To support or join the vigil, please write to SharetheVigil@gmail.com.

"I lost a family member to the virus; fortunately she was able to be buried that same day. My heart goes out to all those who do not have this privilege. Also just yesterday I passed by a temporary morgue stationed outside a hospital in my neighborhood and wondered what can I do? The opportunity to commit to sitting vigil and honoring those lost is very welcomed." 

WAYS OF PEACE is convening a growing interfaith network of hourly vigil-keepers across generations and time zones, honoring the COVID-19 dead and all who care for them around the clock.

Vigil-keeping is a simple yet profound meditation — one that can open our hearts to the full beauty of our fragile lives. Pausing to find stillness at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of our busy days, we are discovering "how to live now" as we honor all those whose deaths connect us intimately with our own humanity. LEARN MORE

"I appreciate having the accountability of sitting with/for the dead in the middle of the afternoon. Midday is a useful time for me to surrender my other activities and feel the reverberations of the prior hours, my mind-state, and my heart's intentions. I'm finding my way with it."

Across cultures and faith traditions — Jewish Omer, Muslim Ramadan, Christian Eastertide, Buddhist Vesak — this season of shared vigilance calls us to open our hearts more deeply to those near and far whose lives are being claimed by a global plague. Bearing witness through timeless rhythms of response, vigil-keeping is helping to restore the broken rhythms of community life.

You are warmly invited to join us. LEARN MORE

And when your body has become still,
reach out with your heart.
Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
— Rev. Lynn Ungar, "Pandemic" (3/11/20)

"Share the Vigil" is a How to Mourn AND Organize initiative of WAYS OF PEACE.

Over nearly two decades since the post-9/11 disaster relief, I have met weekly with a diverse and wonderful group of seniors on the Lower East Side. Through their abundant life wisdom, my elderly students have invariably become my teachers.

The only members of their family to survive the Holocaust, Polish-born sisters Dora Benjamin and Hana Citron z"l were loyal group regulars during the final years of their lives. Both mostly listened, often smiling slightly as others talked. Yet when Dora did speak she became very animated, more than once affirming the core commitments of her survival — as well as her loving generosity and gratitude:

"I wanted to live. I wanted others to live. One potato, six pieces." —Holocaust survivor Dora Benjamin z"l

Dora died a week before Passover in 2015, some years after Hana z"l. On the eve of Passover this year, a dear friend whose Seder I usually attend reminded me of how I had shared Dora's wisdom in years past. And at the end of Passover week, Dora's legacy highlighted my own choices during this global crisis.

Every six months I donate the equivalent of 10 percent of my own food expenses to one or more food justice organizations.* Last week I sat considering my cash flow in the shadow of COVID-19. How much could I allocate now to local urban youth farmers, upstate agricultural workers, and others on the front lines  — many of whom barely earn enough to feed themselves and their families in the best of times?

I checked my bank account and discovered that I'd received my 2020 economic stimulus payment. Now I had the power to share even more with the most vulnerable, near and far, who remain ineligible for the payment I'd just received. LEARN MORE

Especially on this day of Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance — with Dora's ethical stimulus legacy of "one potato, six pieces"— how could I do any less?

At this time of global crisis, the lifesaving imperatives of "just-giving" — simple, fair, and flexible — have never been more vital.

Generous Justice offers a self-guided process of just-giving — including essential exploration of family money stories, support for emotional literacy around financial issues, and even "healthy money songs" — perfect for practicing social justice at physical distance. LEARN MORE

Order your copy of Generous Justice today!

*In our commitment to just-giving, WAYS OF PEACE walks the Generous Justice  walk. We donate at least 10 percent of net staff compensation forward to other organizations that uphold our core mandates of renewing justice and kindness across lines of diversity.

Ancient Jewish wisdom describes the world as standing on a tripod of Torah (study), worship (or work), and caring actions. Under normal circumstances, today's communities tend to run on the two legs of study and worship / work. The third leg of caring actions is generally shortened to save time.

Yet caring actions represent the only "leg" that can support us reliably over the long term. This is our "Torah on one foot" — traditionally focused on prevention, on restraint, on not doing to others what we ourselves experience as harmful.

We have borne witness and sustained each other "on one foot" of our global tripod through many past disasters. The restrictions on physical contact imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic offer us compelling public health reasons to STOP...breathe, look, listen, and feel. The current crisis calls us to remember how vitally we are all connected in our vulnerability, however we may be physically distanced by our preventive measures.

With greater mindful awareness and acceptance of what is, we can begin to reconfigure our shaky tripod into something slower, steadier, and more powerful. We can learn how to mourn AND organize. LEARN MORE

The first self-propelled wheelchair was invented by a disabled 17th-century watchmaker named Stephan Farffler. Farffler's wheelchair, which took the form of a tricycle, allowed him to participate more fully in the life of community. Our own communities can be similarly transformed from tripod to tricycle — to move forward with caring actions as our leading wheel, while the two wheels of study and worship / work move back to supporting roles.

This kind of transformation has always been the mission of WAYS OF PEACE. In the days and weeks to come, WAYS OF PEACE will be sharing time-tested resources for moving more slowly and mindfully through this frenzied time — and also more solidly on the paths of kindness and justice. We hope you will join us in our caring efforts.

WAYS OF PEACE Community Resources renews justice and kindness across lines of diversity and throughout the life cycle. We foster the dialogue among generations that is essential for learning the lessons of history — and healing our shattered world.