Objects as Storytellers: CoEvolving with Thomas Berry by Cara Judea Alhadeff, Ph.D. This video excerpt made with Jay Canode and Shahab Zagari plays with the absurdity and complexity of our consumption-obsessed, waste-oblivious society–particularly in the midst of greenwashing, environmental racism / green colonialism, and the fallacious “renewable” energies movement. Dancing

Living in a Fragile World: A Torah Godly Play Story by Rabbi Michael Shire ~I wonder if you have ever looked up at the night sky and wondered how big it is…how far it stretches…..how immense the universe is……?  Or how there are thousands upon thousands of suns, stars, planets

Canadian Wilderness by Rabbi Margaret Frisch Klein I am a lifelong Girl Scout. My love of the out-of-doors comes from many years camping, hiking, canoeing at Girl Scout camps throughout the Midwest, New England and yes Canada.  All summer I have been haunted by an old camp song, known as

Creatress of Night and Day by Rabbi Louis Polisson ~Blessed is She Who causes day to pass and brings the night (1) May She raise up perfect healing to all who are struck (2) Whether they are silent, plant, a living animal, a speaking being (3) Light from darkness, darkness from light (1) May

Blessed by Judith Felsen, Ph.D. ~Blessed are we who have strayed and returned called back by Your mercy, awakened from selfishness to holiness, from cruelty to kindness. Unseeing we concealed, justified, perfected, means to reach our ends, claim desires, perhaps ignorant of damage done, unaware of straying far from You.

Priestly Atonement and Cleansing the Environment by Andy Oram ~Can you really have an impact on climate change by switching to veggie burgers or lowering the heat in Winter? How about making a change at work that shaves some of the carbon footprint off of your product? Do these really

The Ultimate Emergency is a Cancer on the Earth, but It Can Be Successfully Treated by Deb Nam-Krane ~In 2022, after a decade of worsening symptoms that included erratic energy as well as digestive issues – and plenty of gaslighting – I was diagnosed with colon cancer. It was serious

Turn it and Turn it Again by Leah Cassorla, Ph.D ~Our lives are marked by recurrences in time and season that nonetheless are not truly a circle, but rather a spiral, in which the return of the familiar sounds more like a harmonious echo than a repetition. Even Torah and

‘A Monument‘al Vacation by Rabbi Steven J Rubenstein During the late spring, my wife and I joined her son and daughter-in-law on a trip to Vancouver Island off the western coast of Canada, bordering Seattle, Washington. So many things reminded me of previous events in my journeys that are so

Perception of Time by Thea Iberall, Ph.D. ~I ’m driving home from Marblehead where we commemorated Erev Tisha B’Av. My trip home seems so much faster than the trip there, even though my GPS says travel time is 45 minutes each way. As I stare out the window, watching headlights cut

Join us for our Zoom Program on Thursday, August 24th from 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm EDT The 30 days of Elul (Elul 1 starts the evening of August 17) are a time for cheshbon hanefesh (soul searching) and teshuvah (return, repentance). They are a time to turn from the ways in which we

by Sarah Chandler The rolling fog Invites me To stretch my neck To peek at a new perspective It’s Not quite bright enough To squint ~ My eyes wide across the valley Trying not to wait For something else to be ~ Just when I think My orientation is eastward

by Joan Rachin Like many of a certain age, my husband and I had decided to downsize, but unlike many others, ours was less a choice and more a necessity following his stroke two+ years ago. We loved our town, neighborhood, and street and had been making plans to “age

by Judith Felsen, Ph.D. My King, How will I love You when we meet in this year’s fields of Elul? You who have sent illness, pandemic, bloodshed, injustice, hypocrisy, fire, starvation and death… We have been estranged and denying our separation for eons Now it has come to this… With

by Dr. Leah Cassorla In the loaming, Boobah the One-eyed Wonderdog and I sit outside in our vast, shared backyard, watching the swallows. As the evening descends, we watch the tree line of the nearby patch of forest. The lightning bugs begin their fiery dance before us, the swallows swoop

by Rabbi Louis Polisson And the land shall not be sold for ever; for the land is mine; for you are strangers and sojourners with me1 ~ And now we are learning ~ That the Land belongs to No One, To the One with No End For the earth was

by Rabbi Judy Kummer It was my ankle that went. There I was, in the gorgeous Berkshires countryside, walking briskly with my sister-in-law on a glorious true-blue spring day, sun spilling giddily over wildflowers by the sides of the country road, bugs thrumming merrily in the long grass and the

by Thea Iberall, PhD Signal Hill stands 365 feet above Long Beach in Southern California looking down on San Pedro Bay, home of the largest US port. In the 1500s, Tongva tribe members stood on the hill sending smoke signals to their families on Catalina Island. Early settlers used to call it

by Rabbi Suri Krieger “Green green, it’s green they say, on the far side of the hill Green green I’m goin’ away to where the grass is greener still” It’s a song that was a familiar refrain for me in my growing up years. I loved the message as much

by Rabbi Charles R. Lightner “And the giants began to kill men and to devour them. And they began to sin against the birds and the beasts and creeping things and the fish, and to devour one another’s flesh. And they drank the blood. Then the earth brought accusation against