(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
(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
(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
(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
(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
(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
(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
(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
(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
(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
(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
(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.'"
(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
(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
(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,
(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
(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
(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
(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
(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
