Diane Weber Bederman
Diane Weber Bederman was born and raised in Toronto but moved four years ago to a place she calls The Garden of Eden. Diane graduated from university with degrees in science and the humanities. Her love of religion led her into a residency in Clinical Pastoral Education at Toronto Hospital. Living with mental illness prompted Diane to write, produce and narrate The Many Voices of Mental Illness, a six part radio series which can now be found on her website, The Middle Ground, The Agora of the 21st Century at www.dianebederman.com which also includes topics about religion in the public square. Diane wrote for Huffington Post Canada, and now writes for Times of Israel and CanadaFreePress.
Bio last updated April 30th, 2018.
Articles by Diane Weber Bederman
The Place of Healing Mercy
By Diane Weber Bederman
June 1, 2015
To become fully human, Diane Weber Bederman reminds us, we must give our animal lust for vengeance to the God who loves
If we tell ourselves that vengeance belongs to God, we can, over time, let go of the rage, the anger, the poison of hatred that enslaves us to those who have caused our pain, and so provide ourselves a space for a healthier view of life It is — as Moses taught the Israelites in the great song he sang at the end of his life — something that faith demands we leave to God, who alone knows the human heart, who alone knows what is just in a world of conflicting claims, and who will establish perfect justice at a time, and in a way, of His choosing, not ours The Amidah is also known as the "Standing Prayer": we stand before God, before the open Ark of the Covenant, the home of the Torah, the Laws of Moses, the Book filled with the words of love and comfort from God And the rituals, symbols, liturgy and prayers that bring us to God, and that bring God closer to us, help me navigate the world and find my place in it "Vengeance is mine," sayeth the Lord, gives me a place to put those harsh, harmful feelings
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On the Table
Diane Weber Bederman
December 1, 2014
There's no question the niqab oppresses women. The question is why Canadian society accepts it.
I fear if women in Canada are choosing to wear a niqab, then it speaks to the very failure of the ability of our culture to inculcate the great legacy of freedom to our citizens While Western culture, based on the Judeo/ Christian ethic, has evolved over time improving on the implementation of equal...
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A Feeling of Redemption Dawning
Diane Weber Bederman
October 1, 2014
Diane Weber Bederman finds sweet honey and indefatigable hope on an Israeli kibbutz
Rapoport understood the thread of hope and heroism that weaves through Jewish history and connected the warriors of the Warsaw Ghetto with the kibbutzniks who fought valiantly in the War of Independence by dressing Mordechai as a member of the kibbutz and placing him in front of the water tower that...
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Lessons from the Blue Tzedakah
Diane Weber Bederman
February 1, 2014
In Diane Weber Bederman's childhood kitchen, gratitude began with charity
And then spread the gratitude to the many things we take for granted, such as the food on our table, with a simple prayer of thanks for the bread placed before us Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuroanatomist, summarized patterns of thought this way: We think about something and activate thought circuitry; we...
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Seeking the Light of God
Diane Weber Bederman
December 1, 2013
Convivium regular contributor Diane Weber Bederman meets an artist in Rome who has walked his own way along many roads following holy light
For 60 years, Daniel Lifschitz, on his journey to God, created beautiful works of art, poured out his thoughts and preached his love of God The time has come for all of us to be pilgrims, like Daniel, each of us on our own path, taking our own unique journey, seeking our own "Way" to the Truth and L...
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My Brother's Keeper
Diane Weber Bederman
October 1, 2013
The death of a brother she never knew brings Diane Weber Bederman that much closer to God
There was a time when the table was a thin place, a sacred space Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel described the Sabbath as a sacred place where God is present in time rather than space, in history rather than nature Then, for a moment, the mist rolls back, revealing a hidden place, a sacred space, a thi...
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God's Reality Show
Diane Weber Bederman
June 1, 2013
Diane Bederman urges us to let tragedy illuminate the essential ambiguity of God’s will.
The story of Job is timeless because it opens the door to deep, internal soul searching that each of us needs to do during our lifetime because life is not simple while our yearning for meaning is multi-layered The chapters and verses are interconnected, sometimes flowing one into the other, while o...
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God's Messengers
Diane Weber Bederman
January 1, 2013
Diane Weber Bederman decodes Chesterton to understand Saint Francis and Botticelli.
Whether our world was created by chance or design, Saint Francis, born in Assisi in the late 12th century, teaches us to be in awe of all of God's creations, great and small, including the inorganic, because each is specialandunique.WereadinGenesis,"And God saw all that He had made, and it was very ...
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The Ordeal of Civility
Diane Weber Bederman
November 30, 2012
Social media gave us anonymity, and it has opened the door to incivility throughout the public square The host, Jacques Fabi, lamented that it was a pain not being able to say what one really believes, except of course in media that allow for anonymity ...
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On the Table
Diane Weber Bederman
November 1, 2012
Diane Weber Bederman urges us to think again about Yad Vashem.
In January 1943, Giuseppe Roncalli, the future Pope John XXIII, forwarded a request for the Vatican to inquire whether neutral countries could grant asylum to Jews, to inform the German government that the Palestine Jewish Agency had 5,000 immigration certificates available, and to ask Vatican Radio...
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Malthus, Darwin, Rand, and Social Conservatives
Diane Weber Bederman
September 21, 2012
The two men on the Republican ticket have somehow managed to stray from the ethics of one God, who values balancing individual freedom with caring for the stranger, to an ethic of individualism, which resents helping the less fortunate, presenting them as victims of their own circumstances (or mooch...
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Art that Reaches Up
Diane Weber Bederman
September 1, 2012
Michelangelo's David helps Diane Weber Bederman discern why the creative act requires a Creator.
Although it may never have been Michelangelo's intent, to me these unfinished marble statues represent the struggle each of us has to free ourselves from the chains of nature as we leave the world of instinct, the world of the gnat, the natural, and move toward the Seraphim, toward the greater devel...
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The Religious Imagined It
Diane Weber Bederman
August 20, 2012
A people enslaved for centuries were freed by this document of ethical monotheism It was in this vast unknown that the greatest revolution in human history took place: the revelation of the Word of God at Mount Sinai We knew that ethical monotheism was a great revolutionary gift in the evolution of ...
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Praying for One's Life
Diane Weber Bederman
May 1, 2012
Diane Weber Bederman discovers God's power to soothe the troubled mind.
There is physical pain: the kind that starts at the toes and screams up the legs and throughout the whole body from inside out and steals your free will, your ability to think clearly and choose life; pain that brings thoughts of death and quickly erases the memories that make life worth living; pai...
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Why One God Matters
Diane Weber Bederman
March 1, 2012
Looking to ethical monotheism to challenge our feelings-based culture.
How do we reconcile relativism with the knowledge that some behaviour must never be tolerated? If you find your authentic self in a system with no hierarchyof morals, values and ethics, no obligations or con comitant responsibilities, what does that say about the authentic you? The modern quest for ...