33 results for author: Earth Etudes Elul

Earth Etude for Elul 29

This is Where it All Begins by Rabbi Judy Kummer ~Human beings have often pondered the question of which came first, the chicken or the egg. As a gardener, I think more about the cycle of pollination and the growth of seeds and plants and flowers, which lead to more pollination and ultimately to the growth of more seeds. I thought of this recently as I was watching a bumblebee drowse lazily among glorious flowers in a garden, pollinating the blooms and allowing for the creation of more seeds and flowers. In the musical Hamilton, they sing of “the room where it happens” -- and it seems to me that this is where the start happens, where ...

Earth Etude for Elul 28

Hineni--A Heart-centered Etude for this Season by Maxine Lyons ~I am practicing “active hope”– focusing my efforts to align with others dedicated to showing up to be counted together, to make a positive difference in this broken world and to express gratitude for the source of life. Hineni - Here I am - proclaiming the abundance and beauty of nature, to the wind that guides my steps in the forests and at the beaches, moving me along on my path to refresh mind and body. Hineni - for my diverse gardens, encouraging me to attend to the natural fullness of life, imagining the garden also being the blessing of our hearts: planting ...

Shana Tova 5785

Shana tova! It has been a difficult and complicated year.  finding sudden moments of meaning unexpected openings holy ground and deep companionship We allow ourselves to awaken to mystery and find strength in sacred community And as we enter the new year, we remember that life can, once again, blossom and begin anew. Shana tova! Wishing you and your loved ones a healthy, sweet, and meaningful year. Rabbi Katy Allen, Jewish Climate Action Network and Ma'yan TikvahRabbi Robin Damsky, Limitless JudaismSusan Levine, Jewcology (photos ...

Returning to Potential

Earth Etude for Elul 27 by Akiko Yonekawa As a child growing up in Los Angeles, I had simple plans for adult life: to be an artist, teacher, actor, and/or mom. In my actual adulthood, I have had occasion to be one of those things - high school teacher - though I no longer teach. As the years progressed, I developed interests in religion and art history, so for a while I wanted to be a rabbi and then a museum educator. I am, to date, neither rabbi nor museum educator. I had been convinced as a child that the goal of aging was simply to become a grown-up. As a bona fide grown-up, I am having second thoughts. I spent many years in high ...

Tending the Earth

Earth Etude for Elul 26 by Rabbi Marisa Elana James We do live in overwhelming times, as have so many of our ancestors, but I suspect that my great-grandparents’ lack of the internet and 24-hour news cycle made it somewhat easier to cope. Part of me wants to know about every wildfire, every tornado cluster, every new “thousand-year flood,” every point of data that helps me articulate what needs to change. And another part of me is simply exhausted, flattened with helplessness in the face of so many tragedies, unable to transform my outrage and sadness into something that might be useful. I live in Manhattan, and every day I ...

A Photographic Essay of Teshuvah in Seven “Verses”

Earth Etude for Elul 25 by Rabbi Steven J. Rubenstein, BCC God said, “Let there be vegetation of all kinds to create a sense of awe and wonder in my creatures and let them be stewards over this garden of beauty, protecting it and preserving it as a legacy for future generations.” And humans harvested from the bounty of the land, but they did not follow God’s commandment over the decades, destroying the land for their personal gain, taking more than they were entitled to in the same way that they took extra manna in a previous generation. The earth became dried and arid in response to God’s anger. The people of the earth ...

Earth Etude for Elul 24

Past, Present, and Future by Thea Iberall, PhD ~I'm at a shoreline retreat rocking on the dining hall porch. I'm thinking about how vulnerable everything is: people, the land, nature. I'm thinking about my own fragility. Flags above me are flapping in the breeze, a precursor to the remnants of the hurricane that will be hitting us tomorrow. I'm scrolling through the news on my phone: a white politician wanting to win an election, a famous black man complaining about biased treatment by an airline crew. The ocean has a steady presence, like a heater in the walls. I’m reading about American life in 1850. The Industrial Revolution was in ...

Earth Etude for Elul 23

On Gardening and Our Spiritual Gardens by Ivy Helman, Ph.D. Hafik in the garden “And the divine sent the human out of the Garden of Eden, to till the soil, from where humanity had been taken.” - Genesis 3:23 Our connection to the land runs deep. It is recognized in the Torah. It is also a difficult connection, one that takes work and care, and one that I am learning more and more about as my partner and I take over the care of her grandmother’s garden. Since taking over its care in the second half of the summer, we have made some small changes, additions really, to an already beautiful space. We will see what returns next year. ...

Earth Etude for Elul 22

The Thread of Elul by Carly Sachs ~What does thunder say and what stormor visitor has come to quench the secret thirst of the soul and how different the soft knockingof the heart and can you bathe in the waters of the breath? The dharma of a warrior is not to fight,but to love, and how do you trust that your vulnerability is your strength. Discernment is knowing that to holdand to release are not two beads, but one thread. Carly Sachs is a writer and yoga teacher. She is the author of the steam sequence and Descendants of Eve, and the editor of the anthology, the why and later. She bakes challah weekly in Lexington, KY. You can ...

Earth Etude for Elul 21

GoldenRod's Teaching for Elul by Kohenet Sephirah Oshkello ~As we journey through the Wheel of the Year, it is a gift to cultivate the soil and learn from the cycles of the earth. Elul - a month of reflection and growth; emulated in the GoldenRod sparkling all around us amongst the shifting seasons in Vermont. Elul and GoldenRod connect us to our sovereignty, reminding us that we have agency on who we want to be, how we behave, and the legacy we leave behind. A month and a plant to deepen our connection to Our Beloved (self, community, earth, Goddess). As Psalm 27:4, which we chant during Elul says: One thing I ask from Goddess, ...

Earth Etude for Elul 20

Humans and Beavers by Judith Black A short reflection The beaver’s small black nose was gliding towards its lodge.The people sat idling in their SUVs waiting impatiently for the 4 lanes of traffic to break up. Humans and Beavers: the only two species that manipulate and shift their environment.Beavers make wetlands. New perspectives on history, familial dysfunction, aging, and our terribly challenged climate and environment are all fodder for Judith’s tales. From the Montreal Comedy Festival to The Smithsonian Institution, to the Art Museum of Cape Town, Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, and 13 times at the National Storytelling ...

Earth Etude for Elul 19

Greenwashing Initiatives Pollute the Mikvah by Andy Oram ~Insincere gestures toward saving the climate fill the news these days. Governments classify biomass as a low-carbon energy source when many types of biomass1 put more carbon in the air. Carbon offsets, vaunted by many companies, also are mostly for show. 2 Insincerity is a perennial human trait, of course. Someone promises to give up smoking and then takes up vaping. A corporate manager decides to stop micromanaging employees while installing computer software that tracks their clicks and keystrokes. Most of us want to look like better people than we are. And we often fool other ...

Earth Etude for Elul 18

Winter, Spring, Summer or Fall... by Rabbi Margaret Frisch-Klein “Winter, Spring, Summer or Fall…”Trees are like friends. Torah is a Tree of Life, so says Proverbs. We sing this as part of the Torah service. “It is a tree of life to them that hold fast to it and all its paths are peace.” Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav said that we should spend an hour every day outside amongst the trees. Each day when I go out for a walk, I say hello to these very trees. Winter, spring, summer and fall. They keep me grounded. Quite literally. But imagine a world without trees. Without seasons. As our continues to heat up, it could happen. ...

Earth Etude for Elul 17

Trace by Sheryl J. Shapiro ~In this chilly September twilighttufts of cottontail are flattened on the streetthe body drenched, glisteningThe piercing eyes of the crowsdraw the chalk line on the scene The rabbit belongs to the brambles, the earthThe birds are eager for a winter mealI want to lift this creature away from this runway A paper bag from my trunk becomes the gurneyto the small tangle of grass by the mailbox As the evening darkens, I bundle updon a headlamp, shoulder my shovel Gleaming eyes meet mineGrowls and screechesspiral from the boughs of the cedar tree Please, I whisper to the raccoon family, Be with us The ...

Earth Etude for Elul 15

Appreciating Nature's Gifts by Rabbi Susan Elkodsi ~The tiny island country of Iceland sits atop two tectonic plates, the North American plate, and the Eurasian plate, which accounts for most of its landscape, along with its continual seismic activity. Thanks to a cousin who chose to have her wedding in Iceland this past May, I had the opportunity to visit just a small area of this amazing place. Miles and miles of lava fields, unable to be cultivated, gave way to rivers and waterfalls, majestic mountains, geysers and glaciers. I wish I could say that each time I experienced a new wonder, I recited a bracha (blessing) praising God’s ...

Earth Etude for Elul 16

Zazu Dreams - Between the Scarab and the Dung Beetle -Cautionary. Fable for the Anthropocene Era by Cara Judea Alhadeff, PhD https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14uU3UW0d1w ~Our collaboration combines four generations: Zazu (the dreamer), Cara/Mommia (the storyteller), Micaela/Nana (the artist), and Grand Papoo (the family photographer). Zazu Dreams focuses on human rights and ecological justice, merging humanities and the sciences, exploring the relationships among cross-cultural Sephardic and Arab-Jewish spiritualities with biodiversity. The trailer opens with Jacques Cousteau’s declaration, “The impossible missions are the only ...

Earth Etude for Elul 14

Love is the Breath of the Soul by Rabbi Dr. Nachshon Siritsky Earth: Adamah In Hebrew, earth (adamah) is also (adam) which is humanity. Both have the same three-letter root (alef/dalet/mem), but earth/adamah has the extra Hebrew letter "Hey." Hey: the double letter in G!d's Name  Hey: the vowel that opens us to Life Hey: (Breath/Ruach) called Avram and Sarai to leave the land where they could not breathe that they could awaken into their destined Blessings... Hey: the sound of Breath/Ruach that opens to Spirit/Oxygen enlivening us into our Purpose/Bashert. Hey: the yearning for Breath that pushes us out of the narrowness ...

Earth Etude for Elul 13

Uncovering the Moon: The Compass of Compassion by Rabbi Margie Jacobs ~Growing up, I was taught that our prayers on the High Holidays were an effort to move God, who sits on a throne of judgment on Rosh Hashanah writing our fate in the Book of Life, to a seat of compassion by the end of Yom Kippur.  But the Zohar, the 13th-century book of Kabbalah, offers us a different image. While Psalms 81:4 is often translated as “Blow the shofar on the new moon, on the full moon (b’keseh) of our festival day,” the Zohar instead understands “b’keseh” to mean “on the covering of our festival day.” The Zohar takes this to mean that the ...

Earth Etude for Elul 12

Learn to Acknowledge Defeat by Rabbi Paul Plotkin ~I have been a vegetable and herb gardener for the last 30 years. That means that I have had the pleasure of tasting wonderful tomatoes and carrots, snow peas, peppers and eggplants that had real flavor and something mysterious called freshness. It also means that I have experienced disappointment, failure, heartache and loss at a frequency much greater than success. At times after waiting months for a veggie to mature and reach maximal ripeness, something happens. An animal decides it was invited to the harvest. A pest attacks the plant and stunts its growth. A violent storm arrives and ...

Earth Etude for Elul 11

God's eyes on the Land: Why our ancestors chose a land "of hills and valleys" by Rabbi David Seidenberg ~In Parashat Eikev, Deut 11:10-12, the Torah compares the land of Egypt to the land of Canaan. Egypt is sustained by a river-fed agriculture, whereas the land of Canaan is "a land of hills and valleys -- she drinks rain from the heavens." And, unlike Egypt, the eyes of God are upon the land of Canaan continually. Each of these distinctions bears close reading; each is needed to explain the other. Egypt is described as a place where you could water crops from the river “with your foot" / hishkita b'raglekha. There is a great difference of ...