Rabbi Arthur Ocean Waskow, a progressive activist in faith and in politics, died Monday at his home in Philadelphia. He was 92. He was the author of more than two dozen books, a teacher and guide for Jews in celebrating the rituals of their faith, and a model for taking Jewish values to the streets and the ballot box. His death came just months from the January publication date for his memoir, Tales of Spirit Rising and Sometimes Falling: An Activist Life (Monkfish).

Waskow came to national attention in 1969 when he wrote The Freedom Seder, originally published by Ramparts magazine. It is a guide to the symbolic Passover meal that melds the liberation struggles of modern times with the Israelites' freedom from slavery in Egypt.

His 1982 book Seasons of Our Joy (Jewish Publication Society) took a contemporary, eco-friendly approach to celebrating the Jewish holidays. Many of his books, such as 1997's Down-to-Earth Judaism: Food, Money, Sex, and the Rest Of Life (HarperCollins), encouraged laypeople to take on the rituals of the faith themselves—offering not only a "how-to" but a "why to" be Jewish—then step into action.

For Waskow, action meant fighting racism, oppression, and nuclear armament, and paying attention to the dignity of all species and the health of the earth itself. His obituary on the Jewish Telegraphic Agency wire mentions he was arrested more than two dozen times. The photo shows the aged rabbi being hauled away by police at a protest against a tax bill benefiting the ultra rich.

According to the JTA, Waskow celebrated his 92nd birthday on October 12 in hospice care with a Zoom launch for both the memoir and another book, a collection of essays by Jewish activists called Handbook for Heretics and Prophets: A New Torah for a New World. The forthcoming Handbook will get a private printing by the Shalom Center, which Waskow founded in 1983 to be "a prophetic voice in Jewish, multireligious, and American life."

In the final chapter of his memoir, written during the dark, despairing days of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Waskow still found signs of God and redemption. He wrote about people who would turn "each spring to sow seeds toward the next sprouts of justice and of peace" and "renewed commitment to Jewish values." He offered an outline for "a new form of Judaism that struggles toward and fits into a just, democratic, and compassionate planetary society."