377 results for tag: Adults


Earth Etude for Elul 17 – Taking Stock of the Future

by Rabbi Lawrence Troster During the month of Elul it's traditional to do a heshbon ha-nefesh a spiritual accounting of what we did in the past year so that we can do teshuva or repentance for what we have done wrong or failed to achieve. Indeed, the first step of teshuva is the recognition of doing wrong. We then can move on to trying to fix that wrong and gain atonement. One of the characteristics of the modern world is our ability to analyze possible future outcomes in a way that our ancestors could not. So we can take a future heshbon ha-nefesh if we want even given the inevitable uncertainty. In fact, we can help to shape much of ...

Earth Etude for Elul 16 – Return to Our Pond

by Rabbi Dorit Edut Frozen for months, life had chilled out for too long last winter. We began to wonder if a new Ice Age was coming more swiftly than predicted. Disaster was whispering in the wind from which we tried to hide all skin lest the frost take a bite. We stayed indoors and cancelled many a get-together because of the fierceness of this weather. On the pond in front of my daughter’s home, the white heron appeared once in March, as if sent by Noah, but all was solid ice.   In early April evenings, the story of our Exodus from slavery to freedom was told and we began to feel again in our fingers, toes, and inner recesses the need to ...

Earth Etude for Elul 15 – Elul, the Month for Climate Action

by David Krantz Tekiah! In Elul, we hear the call for the quintessential sound of the shofar every morning. It’s meant as a daily wake-up call to action. Appropriately, the word Tekiah itself also means “disaster.” Day after day in Elul, the shofar shouts: “Disaster! Act now!” Just as an alarm clock gives us notice that we have to get to work, the shofar reminds us that time marches onward and that our mistakes won’t correct themselves. We must actively engage with the world to repair it and our relationships with each other. The process of repentance and repair starts with recognition, and it’s time that we recognize that with ...

Earth Etude for Elul 14 – The Pool Is Closed

by Rabbi Natan Margalit, PhD “The Pool is closed.  Have a good night. God Bless America” the lifeguard announced as I climbed out of the public pool at 5:00 pm on an August evening. I was a bit taken aback by that “God bless America.”  Well, of course. Yes, it's America, we’re in a public pool, why not? I hope God blesses America. We need to work for our own country, of course. Im ayn ani li, mi li – If I am not my own advocate, who will be for me? Said Hillel. But, it seemed to say more: God bless America –rah rah, go home team! Beat those enemies. Fear, pride, and narrow-mindedness seemed to lurk in the shadows of that ...

Earth Etude for Elul 13 – Returning to Memories, Reflecting on Progress

by Rabbi Shoshana Meira-Friedman When I was a teenager, my grandfather would set aside mailings from the Sierra Club to give to me when I visited. He knew I cared about nature, and that I identified as an environmentalist. (I never quite knew what to do with the mailings. I think I cut out a few photos from a calendar to hang on my wall.) As I grew older, Pa – a first generation Jewish immigrant, who went from rags to riches in a generation – asked me how I could make a living from environmental work. I remember saying something vague, because I really didn't know the answer. I went to college and majored in Environmental Studies. On visits ...

Earth Etude for Elul 12 – Remembering Earth

by Steph Zabel “I thought the earth remembered me, she took me back so tenderly, arranging her dark skirts, her pockets full of lichens and seeds.” This line from Mary Oliver’s beloved poem, “Sleeping in the Forest,” often runs through my mind. Especially when I leave behind my city environs and return to the embrace of the forest and green, wild places. Teshuvah, return. Some of us may be more drawn to the outdoors than others, but I believe that each of us has heard a call to return to nature at some point in our life. A return to nature can simply be a momentary remembrance, a moment of connection and acknowledgment. Even the ...

Earth Etude for Elul 11 – The Freedom of Dance; the Prayer of Protest

by Maggid David Arfa Shalom Shachna, the son of Holy Angel, the grandson of the Maggid of Mezeritch, learned to dance from the Shpoler Zeide.  For the rest of his life he would share with all who would listen how the Shpoler Zeide was a master of dance and able to achieve Holy Unifications with each step of his foot.  Adapted from Tales of the Hasidim by Martin Buber. “For many of us the march from Selma to Montgomery was about protest and prayer….Even without words, our march was worship.  I felt my legs were praying.”  Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel Sometimes, when I can no longer stand my careless abuse of the Earth, I know I have to ...

Rosh Hashanah and Vegetarianism

Rosh Hashanah is the time when Jews take stock of their lives and consider new beginnings. Perhaps the most significant and meaningful change that Jews should consider this year is a shift away from diets that have been having devastating effects on human health and the health of our increasingly imperiled planet. While many Jews seem to feel that the holiday’s celebration can be enhanced by the consumption of chopped liver, gefilte fish, chicken soup, and roast chicken, there are many inconsistencies between the values of Rosh Hashanah and the realities of animal-centered diet 1. While Jews ask God on Rosh Hashanah for a healthy year, non-vege...

Rabbinical School of Hebrew College Issues Environmental Call To Action

“Even though we may understand the story of creation differently from our ancestors, like them we recognize the need to care for God’s holy works with care and diligence." Rabbi Arthur Green, Rector of the Rabbinical School at Hebrew College

Earth Etude for Elul 10 – Guatemalen Etudes for the Earth

by Rabbi Margaret Frisch Klein An etude is a song, a song of praise. This summer I spent time bouncing on a bus as part of American Jewish World Service’s Global Justice Fellowship in Guatemala. Part of a two year program, we studied text together, we lobbied together, we learned organizing skills together and then we experienced Guatemala together. It is hard to reconcile the beauty of the land together with the brokenness of the country. In 1954 there was a coupe organized in part by the United Fruit Company and the CIA to protect US interests and land ownership. There was a bloody civil war, a genocide really, with a peace accord that was ...

Earth Etude for Elul 9 – Weeds and Debris

by Maxine Lyons I started to think about teshuvah and Rosh Hashana early this summer while cleaning out my flowerbeds of weeds and debris. I noticed the different roots in my garden - fibrous roots spread laterally underground and re-appear in other places, taproots that remain steadfast in one place and grow downward deep into the earth. I was musing about how some people are like taproots- making a bold, firm stance whereas others are like the plants with fibrous roots, appearing and reappearing, showing their influences by reaching out in a variety of places and spaces. Weeding is an ongoing effort especially those that proliferate in shaded areas ...

Dvar Torah for Parsha Ki Teitzei: Can Compassion to a Bird Help Bring Moshiach?

If you come across a bird's nest on any tree or on the ground, and it contains baby birds or eggs, then, if the mother is sitting on the chicks or eggs, you must not take the mother along with her young. You must first chase away the mother, and only then may take the young. (Deuteronomy 22:6- 7) What is the reason for this unusual mitzvah? Maimonides argues that we send away the mother bird to teach us compassion. He insists that animal mothers, just as human mothers, suffer when their offspring are harmed. In Part 3, Chapter 48 of the Guide to the Perplexed, Maimonides writes: "As far as pain is concerned, there is no real distinction between ...

Earth Etude for Elul 8 – Creativity and Teshuvah

by Rabbi Katy Z. Allen Creation. Whether you consider it to warrant a capital C or simply a lower case c, the word expresses how the Universe began. The act of creation holds within it creativity. Creativity was present from the start of the Universe. When we look around, we can see that continually the Universe is created anew, with newness filling every moment of every day: new growth of plants, animals, and other organisms, new stars being born, precipitation falling anew, streams and rivers renewing and changing their course as the water tumbles down mountains and hills, and so much more. We see creativity in the more-than-human world, but ...

Earth Etude for Elul 7 – Covenant and Community

by Rabbi Katy Z. Allen  I’ve been thinking a lot lately about community and covenant.  Rabbi Avi Olitzky defines community as “a circle to which you feel you belong that will miss your presence; it reaches out to you when you’re absent, and you long for it when you’re not there.”  Covenant, berit, is a promise, generally bilateral, requiring the participation of both parties that are bound by the covenant.  In the Torah, G!d enacts three covenants. First is G!d’s promise to all humanity after the Flood, never again to wreak such destruction. The sign of this covenant – actually a one-way agreement, because G!d promises, but ...

Earth Etude for Elul 6 – Bringing Truth to Power on Yom Kippur

by Hattie Nestel To bring truth to power on any day is always rewarding, but to bring truth to power on Yom Kippur acquires even deeper meaning. The first I time I spoke truth to power sufficiently to be arrested was on Yom Kippur, 1983, at the invitation of Scott Schaeffer-Duffy and the Atlantic Life Community, ALC, a mixture of Jewish and Catholic activists from the East Coast founded by Philip Berrigan and his wife Liz McAlister. After meeting Philip Berrigan in 1982, my two sons and I went to ALC retreats in Washington, DC. ALC activists encouraged me to join them in blocking a Trident nuclear submarine in Connecticut on Yom Kippur 1983 ...

Earth Etude for Elul 5 – Dandelions and Teshuvah

By Thea Iberall, Ph.D. As an act of service, I take care of the lawn and gardens at my local Unitarian Universalist Church. The first time I mowed the lawn, I used the hand mower so as to not pour carbon pollution into the atmosphere. People laughed at me, saying this is so old-fashioned. As I doubled-down into my task, I replied, “It’s the wave of the future.” In the lawn are dandelions which are weeds that don’t belong. But what is a dandelion anyway? Is it a weed or a flower? If we think of it as a weed, it is something to destroy because it ruins our desire for a perfectly neat green lawn. If we think of it as a flower, it is a ...

Earth Etude for Elul 4 – Fearing God as a Response to Fear

by Andy Oram Fear is a recurring state that runs throughout life. These days, our fears increasingly hone in on environmental degradation. The drying up of aquifers, the threat of flooding that our major cities face through rising oceans, the disappearance of bees that keep the food chain going--such apocalypses outstrip almost everything we’ve feared in the past. Except for medieval plagues and nuclear war, nothing else in history can cause such legitimate fear as what we’re doing to the environment. These facts engender toxic mental reactions that are sometimes termed eco-despair. This spiritual disorder is blamed not only for rage and ...

Earth Etude for Elul 2 – Elul: A Time to Start Shifting Our Imperiled Planet onto a Sustainable Path

by Richard H. Schwartz, Ph.D The Hebrew month of Elul has arrived. It is the traditional time for heightened introspection, a chance to consider teshuva, improvements in our lives, before the “Days of Awe,” the days of judgment, the “High Holidays” of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The shofar is blown every morning (except on Shabbat) in synagogues during the month of Elul to awaken us from slumber, to remind us to consider where we are in our lives and to urge us to make positive changes. How should we respond to Elul today? How should we respond when: Science academies worldwide, 97% of climate scientists, and 99.9% of peer-re...

Earth Etude for Elul 1 – On the Search for Teshuvah at Walden Pond

by Rabbi Katy Z. Allen Today is the first day of the month of Elul. We are on the countdown to Rosh HaShanah, one month away. Welcome to the first of this year's Earth Etudes for Elul, a project of Ma'yan Tikvah - A Wellspring of Hope, a daily feast of reflections to help us in the process of teshuvah, of re-turning to the Holy One, re-turning toward our best innermost self. The journey toward self-discovery, self-fulfillment, and self actualization is one of constantly looking through the trees for the deep well of water from which we take refreshment, strength, and courage. The way forward is not clear, ...

Deadly Heat Wave in Israel Should Be a Wake-Up Call To the Need For Dietary Changes To Help Avert a Climate Catastrophe

When I speak to people about climate change, often they say that perhaps it will be a problem for future generations, but not now. The recent very severe heat wave in Israel, with temperatures ranging from the mid 90s to well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, resulting in the deaths of a one-year old baby and an 18 year old soldier and in many other people fainting or suffering from dehydration, is an indication that the effects of climate change are already being felt. Other counties in the Middle East experienced even higher temperatures, which reached 122 degrees F in Iraq and 134 degrees F in Iran. Of course the Middle East is not the only region ...