1. I believe this identification is made here for the first time. See this partial photograph as proof: https://nmaahc.si.edu/object/nmaahc_2015.129.48. Sister Mary Leoline (Mary Ann Theresa Sommer, 1927–2006) was a Sister of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, based in Kansas City, who made the entire march. Born in California, she served as a teacher and school principal for decades. See https://www.globalsistersreport.org/news/ncr-archives-religious-leaders-refute-orgy-charges-21221; see also http://markdahlin.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-unknown-harding-hero-of-civil.html; https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/saltlaketribune/name/mary-ann-sommer-obituary?id=29033994.
2. Isaiah 58:5–11.
3. BT Shabbat 31a.
4. A koan, according to a leading scholar of the genre, “far from serving as a means to obviate reason, is a highly sophisticated form of scriptural exegesis: the manipulation or ‘solution’ of a particular kōan traditionally demanded an exhaustive knowledge of canonical Buddhist doctrine and classical Zen literature.” Robert H. Sharf, “The Zen of Japanese Nationalism,” History of Religions 33, no. 1 (Aug. 1993): 1, 2.
5. H. H. Ben-Sasson, A History of the Jewish People (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976), 788.
6. Jeremiah 7:22–23.
7. Psalms 50:13–15.
8. BT Berakhot 26b.
9. BT Berakhot 26b; cf. BT Menahot 110a.
10. Guide of the Perplexed III:32.
11. Gershom G. Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York: Schocken Books, 1974), 265–68.
12. “Jewish Americans in 2020,” Pew Research Center, https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/05/11/jewish-americans-in-2020/.
13. Jill Jacobs, There Shall Be No Needy: Pursuing Social Justice through Jewish Law and Tradition (Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing, 2010).
14. Menachem Creditor, ed., None Shall Make Them Afraid: A Rabbis Against Gun Violence Anthology (N.p.: 2019).
15. BT Shabbat 88a. A version of the same story made its way into the Qur’an, 2:63.
16. See, e.g., Eugene Borowitz, Choices in Modern Jewish Thought (West Orange, NJ: Behrman House, 1995), 307–9.
17. For leading examples of this covenant theology, see Judith Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1990); Eugene Borowitz, Renewing the Covenant: A Theology for the Postmodern Jew (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1991).
18. W. Gunther Plaut, The Rise of Reform Judaism (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1963), 10–11.
19. See Plaut, The Rise of Reform Judaism, 31.
20. Jonathan Sarna, American Judaism: A History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), 83–84, 194.
21. On Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and the beliefs associated with Havurah and Jewish Renewal, see Shaul Magid, American Post-Judaism: Identity and Renewal in a Postethnic Society (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013), 48–56 and passim.
22. See Uriel Heilman, “Conservative Shuls Turning to Musical Instruments to Boost Shabbat Services,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency,” April 8, 2015, https://www.jta.org/2015/04/08/united-states/conservative-shuls-turning-to-musical-instruments-to-boost-shabbat-services. For an account of the history of the issue, see Rabbis Elie Kaplan Sapitz and Elliott N. Dorf, “Musical Instruments and Recorded Music as Part of Shabbat and Festival Worship,” Voting Draft (2010), 7, cbi18.org. (In 1940, Rabbi Boaz Cohen unofficially forbade use of the organ on the Sabbath; in 1959, the Committee on Jewish Laws and Standards stated without analysis that it did “not consider the use of the organ as halakhically prohibited at services”; in 1963, writing on behalf of the Committee, Rabbi Ben Zion Bokser called the organ “legitimate”; and in 1970, the Committee formally permitted instruments other than the organ.)
23. On neo-Hasidism, see Arthur Green, “Neo-Hasidism and Our Theological Struggles,” Ra’ayonot 4, no. 3 (1984): 11–17; Yaakov Ariel, “From Neo-Hasidism to Outreach Yeshivot: The Origins of the Movements of Renewal and Return to Tradition,” in Boaz Huss, ed., Kabbalah and Contemporary Spiritual Revival (Beer Sheva: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, 2011), 17–37; Shaul Magid, “Between Paradigm Shift Judaism and Neo-Hasidism: The New Metaphysics of Jewish Renewal,” Tikkun 30, no. 1 (2015): 11–15; Shaul Magid, Piety and Rebellion: Essays in Hasidism (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 209), xi–xli. On Modern Orthodox neo-Hasidism, see Shai Secunda, “Wild Things: The New Neo-Hasidism and Modern Orthodoxy,” Jewish Review of Books (Winter 2022), and David J. Landes, “Didan Notzach: Toward a Hasidic Modern Orthodoxy,” in Contemporary Forms and Uses of Hasidut, ed. Shlomo Zuckier (New York: Yeshiva University Press, 2022), 371–418.
24. See Jay Michaelson, Everything Is God: The Radical Path of Nondual Judaism (Boulder, CO: Trumpeter Books, 2009). On Jews and Buddhism, see the classic, oft-reprinted Rodger Kamenetz, The Jew in the Lotus: A Poet’s Rediscovery of Jewish Identity in Buddhist India (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1994).
25. Or maybe the problem is that mysticism seems disjunct from social justice. As Michaelson puts it, “Let’s not pretend that the heart’s yearnings about God have anything to say about how the world should be.” Everything Is God, 199.