by Rabbi Katy Allen
The Eternal came down in a cloud. וַיֵּרֶד ה’ בֶּֽעָנָן (Ex. 34:5)
Clouds,
you change,
from minute to minute,
from day to day,
from season to season,
from year to year,
growing,
shrinking,
even sometimes seeming to disappear,
doing whatever is necessary,
whatever is needed,
to fit the conditions,
never losing your key identity,
as a cloud.
In this new year, may we find what is needed
...
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
The clouds above the mountain
Tickle the sky
Spreading north across the orange glow
These trees form a frame
Filled with smaller frames
So that each frame of light
Can shine through
On me
~
It’s the light in front of me
That allows me to ...
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 in place” before life intervened.
As I began to survey the overwhelming task ahead, it was clear that my obsession with helping preserve what pristineness remained in nature had become disconnected from my personal behavior of “littering” our home. My husband gently commented that the books ...
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 my ambivalence how will I love You?
Will I remember that You sent us Your
starry sky on Your darkest night
blooms of wild flowers in Spring
symphonies of songs and calls
vocal ensembles of insects and ...
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 in and out, and hares hop in and out of the line of sight--my line of sight as Boobah's is thankfully too restricted to catch them. I consider this beautiful, if tiny, patch of Olam Ha'bah, and it shifts me to another space.
I've been a whole-foods, plant-based eater for ...
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 confusion and chaos2
~
And we too have become
wild and waste
Human beings from the earth
Human beings, full of harm3
for the earth
Every day
~
But our fate is not sealed
There is hope
There is choice
There is justice4
And there is return, an answer, repentance
~
The time to ...
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 smells of freshness and potential all around.
My sister-in-law pointed out cows in a nearby field; as I glanced over at them, savoring the sunshine on my face, my foot failed to notice missing pavement at the edge of the road — and I took a tumble, twisting my ...
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 the Bay of Smokes. Eventually, large homes were built on the hill, surrounded by an abundance of fruits, vegetables, and flowers. Even a Hollywood movie studio shot films there.Signal Hill changed forever when oil was discovered in 1921. It became covered with over ...
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 as the melody. We were a camping kind of family, and grazing in the greenery of the woodlands was my sacred place. But wherever we went… the Green Mountains of Vermont or the Poconos of Pennsylvania… the green was always somehow marred by the inevitable Fast Food throw-aways of the various camping ...
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 the lawless ones for all that was done on it.” (1 Enoch 7:4-6)[1]
“And again I saw them, and they began to gore one another, and the earth began to cry out.” (1 Enoch 87:1)
The Book of 1 Enoch is the oldest work of Jewish apocalypse, portions dating to the fourth century BCE. Its ...
by Bill Witherspoon
We were supposed to name all the animals.
Lately we have gotten pretty good at it,
While it begins to dawn on us that
Even that slender branch of the tree of life
(Let alone the one on which crawl the slime molds,
Or the branch dotted with archaea microbes that turn salt ponds pink
Or the one spread with green life that converts sunlight into food)
Is just too prolific for words.
Still, 500 animal species named since last Elul
(150 of them the beetles of which She is “inordinately fond”)
Is kind of impressive for an ...
by Rabbi David Seidenberg
The book of Numbers begins, “YHVH spoke to Moshe in the Sinai wilderness.” The midrash asks, why does it specify “in the Sinai wilderness”? Because the wilderness is ready to receive all people and belongs to no one. Just so, the Torah receives all people and belongs to no one, not even to the Jewish people. In the Shmitah year, we are similarly reminded that the land of Israel/Canaan/Palestine belongs to no one – that we are just “sojourners and temporary settlers” (gerim v’toshavim) on the land (Lev 25:23).
The rabbinic ...
by Asher Hillel Burstein
Of love’s immortal way they said,
Cheat the grave her wonted siege.
Garlands round your plot of earth,
Home the wand’ring lights of I.
Who now as all on edge of time,
Toll the eager moonlit tide.
No nuptial love has such a kind,
That hopes for songs he cannot write.
Nor knows a heart like his so dimmed,
By sweet rejected notes; he aches.
To share with one for whom he dies,
By day, by night; so long the years.
Of tears; his right to humble space,
Immortal face, which none can see,
For neither son nor ...
by Rabbi Margaret Frisch Klein
I live on the prairie, in the Prairie State of Illinois. Not a “Little House on the Prairie,” a big house, but there are vistas that remind me of that show. In a county that is known for its dairy farming. Borden Milk came from here. The library is the Gail Borden Public Library. That Borden. The house across from the synagogue is known as the “Butterman’s House” because the prices for butter as a commodity were set there. There was even a documentary called “From Dairies to Prairies.”
Once, before it was farmland, it ...
by Carol C. Reiman
Livestreaming ladder of angelic messengers.
Protecting voice of the she-ass, female with the weight of responsibility,
birthing words of courage, seer of boundaries
This is the place in which we have walked, oblivious or called.
Wandering, weeping by waters, reaching beyond and within.
Nurturing what was pulled from the reeds, allowing the land
and its tenders to rest, leaving food at the edges for those in the margins.
Joy in first fruits, dancing in gratitudes, peace in the soul.
Carol C. ...
by Dr. Mirele Goldsmith
Not long ago, I visited Lake Itasca, the source of the Mississippi River. I was awed by the revelation that the Mississippi watershed extends to 40% of the United States and the river itself is 2,340 miles long. I was so moved that I spontaneously recited the blessing for fulfilling the commandement to immerse in living waters, the traditional blessing for visiting the mikveh (ritual bath.)
Jewish tradition teaches us to appreciate water. Water, we are taught in Genesis, existed before the creation of the world – an insight ...
by David Krantz
Dr. Alon Tal
As Rosh Hashanah approaches, it’s customary for us to take stock — What have we done wrong? What could we be doing better? — but Rosh Hashanah is also a time to look back and consider the many ways we have been blessed. This Elul, as his time in Knesset likely (and unfortunately) comes to a close, we are particularly grateful to Aytzim cofounder and Knesset member Dr. Alon Tal, Israel’s leading environmentalist, for all he has done to improve the wellbeing of Israel’s land, plants, people and non-human animals.
Aside from ...
by Rabbi Steven Rubenstein
Each year I choose a theme for my High Holy Day thoughts for my community, which they receive in written form. They are a continuation of the div’rei Torah that I write each week. An administrative assistant revealed to me that she enjoyed sitting down at her table on Saturday morning with her cup of coffee in hand to read my comments and to reflect upon them. From this admission I decided to devote this year’s theme to the Spirituality of Coffee.
When coffee first became popular in Europe, cafes were visited by intellectuals to ...
by Rabbi Mike Moscowitz
The story is told about two people who are disputing ownership over a piece of land, each claiming that it belongs to them. A rabbi is consulted to offer a ruling in Jewish Law to decide the case. After carefully listening to the arguments of both sides he says “Ok, now I need to hear what the land has to say about it.” With quite a bit of hesitation, both parties finally agree to accompany the Rabbi to the parcel of land in question. The Rabbi kneels down, gently placing his ear to the ground. After a few moments, the Rabbi stands up ...
