My Blog Subscribe
Darkness and Light
(reposted from Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin's blog: http://blog.bjen.org/, March 22, 2012) I had the privilege earlier this week of teaching at the Anacostia (DC) Watershed Stewards Academy. This version of the course is specifically designed for faith leaders. And I can tell you that there is no better place to study the first lines of the book of Genesis (describing the emergence of the world out of the primordial waters) than with a bunch of ...
Making Jewish Baltimore Sustainable
(reprinted from the Baltimore Jewish Times Insider, March 9, 2012) Green fairs. Composting. Community gardens. Choice parking spots for hybrid cars. It feels like the homepage of globalissues.org. It is the newest reality in Jewish Baltimore. THE ASSOCIATED: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore is spearheading the effort. It started almost a decade ago, when a group of top ASSOCIATED lay leaders and professionals got together to see ...
Harbingers of Spring
(reposted from Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin's blog: http://blog.bjen.org/, dated March 8, 2012) Right on time, the peepers have returned. They greeted me after megillah reading last night, singing their chorus of longing into the soft, warm March air. Well, one did at any rate. It was, as usual, a lonesome call of an avant-garde male, out before the rest, desperately hoping that at least one of the pond's she-frogs has emerged from her ...
The Privileged Place of Fruit Trees
(reposted from Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin's blog: http://blog.bjen.org/ dated February 26, 2012) Once upon a time, we knew, deep inside, the magic of fruit trees. The trees of life and the knowledge of good and evil in the Book of Genesis were not pine or poplar or cypress. They were fruit trees. The dove did not bring back an ash leaf or elm bough but an olive branch. The laws of the Torah that urge us to avoid waste and limit ...
Unwanted Old Things
(reposted from Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin's blog: http://blog.bjen.org/, dated February 22, 2012) When my son moved to NYC last summer, he took the furniture from his DC-sized area apartment to his Manhattan-sized apartment. And - unfortunately - discovered that it didn't all fit. So, like the native New Yorker he is, he put the excess furniture out on the curb. Three hours later, it was gone. I had earlier seen a man on the street stop, ...
Fruit Trees
(reposted from Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin's blog: http://blog.bjen.org/ dated February 17, 2012) I just returned from a whirlwind trip to Israel, which serendipitously coincided with the season of Tu B'shvat, the day that marks the new year of the trees. Since the times of the early rabbis, this holiday has been a sacred day on the Jewish calendar. In modern Israel, it is a day of joy, when school children go out into the fields and ...
Are We There Yet?
(reposted from Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin's blog: http://blog.bjen.org/ dated February 1, 2012) "We used to teach technology as a subject. [Today,] it's no longer the 'something' that we teach; it's the platform on which we deliver information." Shaindle Braunstein-Cohen on iPads in Jewish Day Schools, by Rabbi Jason Miller (quoted from eJewish Philanthropy) This is true with so many fundamental tasks of life: ...
Maryland Legislative Environmental Summit
(reposted from Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin's Blog: http://blog.bjen.org/, dated January 25, 2012) Below is Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin's presentation at the annual Maryland Legislative Environmental Summit, held January 24, 2012, in Annapolis, MD. We live in the midst of a 4-billion year old mystery, an on-going miracle that we call Earth. For all we know, no such miracle exists anywhere else. Whatever we may be skilled enough to ...
Counting Enough
(reposted from Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin's blog: http://blog.bjen.org/, dated January 23, 2012) There is something odd, and instructive, about manna. It was, by all accounts, miraculous. Accompanying the Israelites from Egypt to the Promised Land, it was not like other food. It did not grow from the earth and it did not fall from the sky (despite the poetic vision of Exodus 16:4) . It appeared after the dew of the morning had worn off ...
Perfection & Contentment
(reposted from Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin's blog: http://blog.bjen.org/) While the philosophers and rabbis of old lost themselves in labyrinths of logic like: "Can we have free will if there is an All-Knowing God," mothers of old (or so I imagine) struggled with the very real question: "How can I raise my child to reach for excellence but be content with their best?" That is, how can we, how do we, hold together two ...
Seeds
(reposted from Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin's blog: http://blog.bjen.org/ dated January 6, 2012) In Genesis 1, on the sixth day, God creates man and woman after having created all the rest of Planet Earth. In a gracious effort to provide some guidance, some instruction to these bewildered, befuddled neophytes on how this novelty of life could possibly work, God says, "Look around. All this grandeur is there for you." 28 God blessed ...
Cisterns or Trees…?
(reposted from a blog by Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin, http://blog.bjen.org/) There is a wonderful teaching in the Jerusalem Talmud which reads: "Rabbi Yohanan, speaking on behalf of Rabbi Yossi, says: 'Just as they (the other rabbis) believe that civilization depends on cisterns, so I believe that civilization depends on trees.'" The work of blending civilization and nature has always been a challenge. In this "man vs ...
Desire
(reposted from Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin's blog: http://blog.bjen.org/. This article also appeared in her column, written for the Bay Journal News Service, which appeared in the Baltimore Sun earlier this week:) Ever since Adam and Eve took a bite of the apple, we have been haunted by Desire, that shape-shifting seducer who promises us beauty, understanding and fulfillment if only we chase after More. On the one hand, that is a ...
Filthy Banking
(reposted from Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin's blog: http://blog.bjen.org/) You would hardly know that in Durban, many of 194 party members of the United Nations Framework for Climate Change are meeting for the 17th COP (Conference of the Parties) to continue to explore how to save the planet from itself. This is the group that brought us the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 which sought to limit the amount of greenhouse gases the world emits. The UNFCCC ...
Wealth & Worth – Sustainable Celebrations
(reposted from Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin's blog: http://blog.bjen.org/, dated December 1, 2011) The Maryland Chapter of the American Jewish Congress is developing a Green and Just Celebrations Guide for the Jewish community of Baltimore. Inspired by a guide of the same name published by Jews United for Justice in Washington, DC, it will be available (fall 2012) through synagogues and on the web, designed to make events and celebrations ...
The Shared Nature of Nature
(Reposted from Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin's blog dated November 17, 2011: http://blog.bjen.org/) In the mid-19th century, Calvert Vaux created the iconic images of the American urban landscape, including the grounds at the White House, the Smithsonian Institute and (with his newly hired young recruit, Frederick Law Olmsted) Central Park. Though Vaux started in landscape design, he later moved into designing buildings and homes that would ...
Erev Thanksgiving
(reposted from Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin's blog: http://blog.bjen.org/, dated Nov. 20, 2011) I love Thanksgiving, perhaps because it is so different from Judaism's standard, classical, biblical holidays. All our pilgrimage holidays, for example, happen away from home, toward home, longing for home. They teach us how to create a sense of place, of pride, of belonging in the midst of wandering and dislocation. They teach us how to be ...
Much Ado About Fracking
(reposted from Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin's blog: http://blog.bjen.org/, dated November 14, 2011) I recently purchased and viewed Gasland. It is a documentary exploring the hazards that come in the wake of hydraulic fracturing (aka, fracking) to loose natural gas from pockets within shale formations around the country. One of those formations is Marcellus Shale. It covers nine states, including most of West Virginia, half of Ohio and ...
Return on Luck
(reposted from Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin's blog: http://blog.bjen.org/, dated October 31, 2011) If ever there were a time for the faith community to raise its voice about what we are doing to the environment, how we conduct business, and the mean-spirited incapacity of the government, now is the time. In their new book, Great by Choice, Jim Collins and Morten Hansen, investigate how some of the most successful companies in the world got ...
Signs of Fall
(reposted from Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin's blog: http://blog.bjen.org/, dated October 23, 2011 - pre-winter storm!) When we lived in the northern hinterlands of New Jersey (in what now seems lifetimes ago), we knew that summer had arrived when Gene, our gentle next-door neighbor, opened up his above-ground pool. He would clean and remove the leaf-laden cover, wash off the sides, and unshock the water. (I don't even want to know the ...
