558 results for tag: Teachers / Educators


Earth Etude for Elul 19: Canopy to Heaven

  by Judith Felsen, Ph.D.   ~ There is a canopy of trees that open to the worlds above so those who come to rest beneath their arbor can transcend both worlds. Their trunks are pillars reaching heights we dream to touch and do not dare to try, and yet we come to rest and seek reprieve from weariness of life within their shelter. Can you see this canopy within yourself, its crown and all its glory yielding to still greater heights? This resting place was made for you and offers you its peace and wisdom in release from worldly thoughts and cares. Will you not let yourself now journey to that ...

Earth Etude for Elul 18: Help the Honeybees

by Susie Davidson ~ I always enjoy perusing the Jewish holiday-themed emails from Rabbi Arthur Waskow of the Philadelphia-based Shalom Center. Earlier this year, Rabbi Waskow pointed out that Earth Day ended just as Passover began. "As the traditional Haggadah says," he quoted, "In every generation we face destruction -- and so in every generation all of us -- every human being --  must seek freedom, justice, and healing anew." Waskow suggested passing around an inflatable Globe at the end of the Seder, and singing a song that began: We have the whole world in our hands. We have the frogs and the forests in our hands, We have the wind ...

Latest Book Review of “Who Stole My Religion? Revitalizing Judaism and Applying Jewish Values to Help Heal Our Imperiled Planet”

  WHO STOLE MY RELIGION: Revitalizing Judaism and Applying Jewish Values to Help Heal Our Imperiled Planet. By Richard H. Schwartz, Ph.D., With Rabbi Yonassan Gershom and Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz. BOOK REVIEW by Judy Carmen: Like some of the prophets of ancient times, Dr. Schwartz is courageously calling on the Jewish people to return to their core values and take up the challenge of healing the earth and bringing peace and justice to all living beings. This is no casual reprimand. Dr. Schwartz is warning his Jewish readers, as well as people of all faiths, that if we do not do our part to stop the relentless destruction of earth and ...

Earth Etude for Elul 17: Ode to Water

by Rabbi Laurie Gold ~ Walt Whitman’s beautiful poem, “The Voice of the Rain”, has always moved me. I hope you appreciate it, too. And who are thou? said I to the soft-falling shower, Which, strange to tell, gave me an answer, as here translated: I am the Poem of Earth, said the voice of the rain, Eternal I rise impalpable out of the land and the bottomless sea, Upward to heaven, whence, vaguely form’d, altogether changed and yet the same, I descend to have the drouths, atomies, dust-layers of the globe, And all that in them without me were seeds only, latent, unborn; And forever, by day and night, I give back life to my own ...

A Rosh Hashanah Message: Is God’s ‘Very Good’ World Approaching a Catastrophe?

Rosh Hashanah commemorates God's creation of the world. The “Ten Days of Repentance” from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur is a period to evaluate our deeds and to do teshuvah (repentance) for cases where we have missed the mark. Sukkot, which starts a few days after Yom Kippur, is a holiday in which we leave our fine houses and live in temporary shelters (sukkahs) to commemorate our ancestors’ journey in the wilderness. Hence, the upcoming weeks provide an excellent time to consider the state of the planet's environment and what we might do to help shift the world onto a sustainable path. When God created the world, He was able to say, "It is tov ...

Earth Etude for Elul 16: Choosing Again to Be Good

by Joelle Novey ~I had the opportunity to sit with good folks of many faiths over the last year as we studied the words of Pope Francis’ Encyclical on ecology, Laudato Si.   Also this year, I had many moments of feeling overwhelmed by the bad things in our world that seem so much bigger than any one of us: the irrevocable and global suffering already being caused by our damaged climate; the harm being done to black bodies and spirits by the pernicious persistence of racism; the unrelenting meanness of this year’s presidential campaign rhetoric. What gives me hope as we enter a season of reflection? I’m turning to Pope ...

Earth Etude for Elul 15: Water and Clarity of Mind

by Carol Reiman ~ The month of Elul comes round again, time to prepare for what comes next.  Yom Kippur melodies rise, twist, turn in on themselves.  Time to look in on my self, to find the familiar in a new way, to find my marker in the year. Drawn to water for clarity of mind, sitting by brook or sea returns me to calming rhythm. Rushing thoughts ebb and flow through my meditation. As the currents go their ways, all settles into place. In the water space, my boundaries blur; I am a dot in something big, feeling a depth within. Mixing old and new, waters swirl. Gushing forth, hope lifts me up above the surface, setting me once ...

Earth Etude for Elul 14: Paradox

by Rabbi Katy Z. Allen ~ An individual's ability to accurately perceive changes in the rate of violence in the world over human history is near to impossible. Truly understanding global fluctuations in violence requires knowledge of events over such a vast breadth of space and time that it is essentially beyond a human's ability to comprehend. Which of course doesn't stop us from trying. Steven Pinker has tackled the concept, and he reports us that violence in the world has been going down steadily over the millennia, the centuries, and the decades. Pinker has his detractors, of course, and they claim that his reporting and understanding of ...

Earth Etude for Elul 13: A Tall Order

by Hattie Nestel ~ Creating the earth and all within was the gift of G-d. Opening our eyes to see the situation the world is in, and in particular the destruction of all G-d gave us, is the work of the people. How shall we begin the job of righting the wrongs done not only to the environment but to people dependent on the environment going through catastrophic changes. Daily we hear of forest fires burning thousands of acres and untold numbers of trees and wildlife. It takes thousands of firefighters to stop such fires. How can we imagine consequences of those lost trees and heat escaping into the atmosphere. We have droughts and floods of ...

Earth Etude for Elul 12: In the Shadow of the Rabbi’s Tree

by Hody Nemes ~ I spend my days entombed in a skyscraper in downtown Manhattan. I am writing these words in an eight-story apartment building. As the world urbanizes, and as the urban sprawls further afield, we spend our lives increasingly surrounded by the human-made – brilliant engineering, beautiful cityscapes, wonderful in their own way, yet sometimes painfully lacking.  A wonderful other sort of beauty, the emergent beauty of ecosystems -- of field, forest, coral reef -- is increasingly harder to find. Thanks to climate change and other massive societal failings, we are in the midst of the sixth major extinction to afflict our earth. ...

Earth Etude for Elul 11: The Emergence of Aliveness

by Rabbi Natan Margalit, Ph.D. ~ On Rosh HaShana we say “hayom harat olam” – today is the birth of the world.  But it isn’t just a birthday that happened in the past. The daily morning blessings remind us that God creates the world anew every day.  So this High Holiday season is a time to celebrate a process of on-going creation. It brings up the question: what do we even mean today when we talk about God’s creation of the world? I certainly don’t mean a fundamentalist idea that God is a Being in the sky who spoke 5,777 years ago and created the world. By creation I mean that there is wisdom, beauty, value and holiness that are ...

Rosh Hashanah is the time when we take stock of our 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 its 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 diets. Please consider: 1. While Jews ask God on Rosh Hashanah for a healthy year, ...

“The King in the Field”

~ Where spirit, nature and people meet An old-new Jewish movement overseas About three months ago I was privileged to participate in a formative event arranged by the JOFEE network (Jewish Outdoor, Food and Environmental Education), which took place in a convention center out in nature in the heart of the U.S. For three days we pored over texts describing events that have shaped us as a people, from the well-known "Lech Lecha" until today; we got to know and examine different projects, for example community gardens of various temples, or agricultural farms run according to halacha; and we experienced spiritual activities in nature itself. ...

Earth Etude for Elul 10: Re-remembering Who We Are

by Rabbi David Jaffe ~ Born at home on a Shabbat morning, my son spent his first few hours on this planet snuggling against his mother’s warm chest.  One of the most striking visual images of that first day was the moment our midwife cut the umbilical cord that physically connected mother and child. Until that moment I knew abstractly that we were all connected and even, at rare times of spiritual reverie, sensed this connection.  But here I saw it – as humans we were at one point actually physically connected to another human being, our life interdependent with their life! The loss of this raw, visceral sense of interconnection with all ...

Challenging Questions for Donald Trump That Can Help Defeat Him

Donald Trump has been getting away with many lies and misrepresentations during his presidential campaign. Below are some challenging questions, mainly on issues that generally are insufficiently considered, that can help defeat him. Suggestions for other questions are very welcome. Mr. Trump, you claim that you will make better deals with other countries, but won’t your diplomatic efforts be harmed by your eagerness to tear up an agreement signed by leaders of all 195 nations at the December 2016 Paris climate change conference? Mr. Trump, you claim that you will reduce terrorism, but why are you ignoring the concerns of military experts that ...

Earth Etude for Elul 9: The Important Ten Percent

by Rabbi Judy Weiss ~ Rabbi Dr. Judith Hauptman, professor of Talmud at the Jewish Theological Seminary, taught a passage from the Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 54b-55a, in a study session for the Israeli Knesset in 2014 (listen to her re-teach it at Mechon Hadar, here). In this passage, the rabbis conclude that we're responsible for protesting when we observe someone doing something that is morally wrong. We must protest even if we think the offenders won't heed our warnings, and even if we fear being stigmatized for speaking out. The talmudic passage teaches that if we fail to protest a wrong-doing that we observed, our name becomes attached to ...

Earth Etude for Elul 8: Like a River Flows

by Janna Diamond “I would like to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.” - John O’Donohue What happens when we begin to awaken to what is in front of us, around us, and meeting us? Whose truth are we waking up to? Is it the “reality” of the heat being turned up--literally, like the past summer with the highest temperatures on record--and also the speed at which crises are converging? Or is it actually a mirror for our ability to see, feel, and hear our own truth-telling? I’ve witnessed many conscious, politically engaged people recently confess to idealizing the way things were before they knew ...

Earth Etude for Elul 7: The Power of Limit-Making

by Maggid David Arfa “Self-respect is the root of discipline: The sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.” R. AJ Heschel A riddle:  Lily pads are doubling on a pond every day, Day 1- 1, Day 2- 2, Day 3- 4, Day 4- 8 and so on.  On day 30, the pond is filled.  On what day is the pond half filled? Answer: The 29th day.  And the 28th day the pond is only a quarter filled.  The 27th day? The 26th day?* ___________________________________________________ I am writing one week after the destruction that is Tisha B’av. It is now the time of consolation. And yet, Moshe Rabbeinu, Moses our great teacher, is begging to ...

Earth Etude for Elul 5: Changing Ourselves

by Thea Iberall, Ph.D. ~ Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) said, “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” I think about this statement every time I do climate change activism. We must wean humanity off of fossil fuels before the seas rise too high and before droughts have not just millions of people on the move as they are now, but billions searching for food, water and stable governments. What am I personally doing to change myself to help alleviate the problem? I drive a hybrid car and try to use less and less electricity. How much of a difference will it make? Multiple my actions by a few billion people and it ...

Earth Etude for Elul 4: The Power of Silence, the Power of Creation

by Rabbi Katy Z. Allen ~ When we don’t know what to do, it can be difficult to sit still. When we are deep in grief or despair, it can be painful to stop moving. When we are angry or hurt, allowing silence into our lives can feel almost impossible. Silence in all these situations can feel like an unwanted stranger. But silence is a good friend. And our own silence when we are out in nature, is even a better friend. Those of us who have a bit of undisturbed land near us, and who can safely walk in these places, are truly privileged and blessed. A moment of silence in nature can bring healing to a deep wound.    A moment of listening ...