Jewcology Blogs


An  Innovative Initiative To Avert a Climate Catastrophe and Leave a Habitable, Healthy, Environmentally Sustainable World For Future Generations

Because climate threats are increasingly apparent, Jewish Vegan Life (JVL) has started  a unique, potentially game-changing initiative to reduce them, called “Shofar for Change.” It involves a Zoom event featuring  the blowing of the shofar at the Kotel on September 29, 11 AM US Eastern time  (6 PM Israel time), followed by several talks on the seriousness of climate threats and how it can be prevented. JVL hopes the shofar blasts will awaken people to the following realities. The world is rapidly approaching a climate catastrophe. Significant ...

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initiative To Avert a Climate Catastrophe and Leave a Habitable, Healthy, Environmentally Sustainable World For Future Generations

Because climate threats are increasingly apparent, Jewish Vegan Life (JVL) has started  a unique, potentially game-changing initiative to reduce them, called “Shofar for Change.” It involves a Zoom event featuring  the blowing of the shofar at the Kotel on September 29, 11 AM US Eastern time  (6 PM Israel time), followed by several talks on the seriousness of climate threats and how it can be prevented. JVL hopes the shofar blasts will awaken people to the following realities. The world is rapidly approaching a climate catastrophe. ...

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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, ...

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Shofar for Change: Awakening the Jewish World to the Climate Crisis

As the shofar blasts pierce the air this Rosh Hashanah, they carry with them the ancient call for reflection, repentance, and renewal. But this year, a new sound will echo through the holiest site for our people – a call to action not just for the soul, but for the planet. On September 29, at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, a nonprofit called Jewish Vegan Life (JVL) will host an extraordinary event as part of their groundbreaking Shofar for Change initiative. At 6 PM Israel time (11 AM US Eastern time), the shofar will be sounded in honor of global ...

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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 ...

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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 ...

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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 ...

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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 ...

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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 ...

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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 ...

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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 ...

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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 ...

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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/...

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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 ...

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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. ...

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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 ...

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Earth Etude for Elul 10

Climate and the Sh'ma by Leah F. Cassorla Ph.D. ~One of my amazing 7th graders said to me that the second paragraph of the Sh’ma (the V’hayu) says, in his words, “if we follow the commandments, we will have plenty to eat and be safe, but there are people who don’t have enough food.” He’s right. There are people who don’t have enough food. I explained it’s because we bow down to other gods. The V’hayu is either completely redacted or read silently in most liberal Jewish communities in North America. It feels a bit icky to us. It describes a ...

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Earth Etude for Elul 9

I COME HOME by Lisa M. Miller ~walk my wild rocky woodland—indigo bunting familieskatydids, a woodpecker,the rushing creek timbre.God. In tones solstice goldmoss thick, hardwood sentries and baby sapsline my edgesway far out. I’m bigger here, resilient, and only a speck.Soaring thank yous with feet.I know myself. I knowhow to find my way—homeanywhere. Lisa M. Miller is an inclusive, community-building, mind-body health specialist and social justice advocate. Her workshops help women in every life-chapter integrate physical, emotional and ...

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Dropping Our Leaves

Earth Etude for Elul 8 by ©Rabbi Robin Damsky ~In his book, This is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared, Alan Lew, of blessed memory, teaches us that the arc of the High Holy Days begins with the grief of Tisha B’Av, even before we approach Elul. As we mourn the destruction of the Temples, we acknowledge loss, brokenness, a sense of unfathomable exile. We feel this so preciously this year, as it has been perhaps the greatest year of grief and loss to us in the Jewish community since the Holocaust. And the grief remains, persists. I think of a deciduous ...

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Earth Etude for Elul 7

Love Psalm from Elohim by Judith Felsen, Ph.D. Dear Ones,This Elul we greet and meet in fields of anguish,barely chanting salutations trapped in unrequited prayerswaiting to be mourned…our hearts engorged with grief and rage beat haltingly,our bodies weary cartons holding our debacle, filled withsymptoms screaming for attention and unknown revenge… Dear Ones,Within this dark abyss, quagmire of all unsafe,do not shut down to holiness presiding on the edge of emptiness;be with the speech of Elohim, the wind, the seas, the sparkle of the stars;let Hashem’s ...

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