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Earth Etude for Elul 24
Onyinyechi ("Gift of God")
by Asher Hillel Burstein
~Blood-red light on a golden chainHangs low and onto me, overflowsLike a waterfall, I drown in its millionLambent drops formed at the other endOf the Earth, I am but a speckle butThe fiery stone holds the world entire inHer field where God, though too immenseFor the heavens may abide with comfortIn her breast where my eyes are led asIron to a magnet, moths to a candleThat consumes me and drains the lifeFrom my veins, a myriad of spritesTake flight and leave me wilted.I die in her flames.Asher Hillel Burstein is a ...
Earth Etude for Elul 23
You Shall Teach Them to Your Children
by Rebecca Heisler
~ For many, Tisha b’Av is an arrow pointing towards the start of the cycle of teshuvah, that leads us through Elul and into Tishrei. The themes, questions, and prayers of this holiday can lead us to find meaning and connection in the season of returning.
This year on Tisha b’Av, as I sat around a fire, I found myself praying for the children. It began with “I’m sorry.”
And it continued, “I’m sorry for the world you are inheriting, and even more for the earth you are inheriting.”
I...
Earth Etude for Elul 22
Rosh HaShanah in the Northern Latitudes
by Louise Quigley
(Written in a year when Rosh Hashanah, the Autumn equinox, and the first killing frost in the garden all came together)Now frost-blighted fuchsias start to rot,crumpled tomatoes sag against their poles,and sap's ebb spreads across the leaves like gold;dark outlasts day again, and it gets cold.And this is the world's birthday, this the daywe call the head and start of another year.For now all nature turns to its decay:dun yard trash molders into fertile loam;Earth turns towards winter's still, which turns ...
Earth Etude for Elul 21
Turbulence Within and Without
by Rabbi David Seidenberg
Rabbi Nachman of Breslow taught:
The divine name "YOU" (in Hebrew "Atah") is propitious over the sea to calm the waves. This is the inner meaning of the verse "YOU (Atah) rule over the magnificence/swelling (gay-ut) of the sea; in lifting its waves, YOU (Atah) will make them still." (Likutei Moharan 1:256 on Psalm 89:10)
Waves of feeling can stir us up and arouse our passion, and they can arouse confusion. Amid turbulence can we see magnificence? Is there splendor to match the chaos and ...
Is Eating Meat and Other Animal Products Halachically Justifiable Today?
Based on increasingly dire warnings from climate experts and a significant increase in the frequency and severity of climate events, it is clear that the world faces great danger from climate change. As discussed below, averting a climate catastrophe depends very much on a major societal shift to plant-based diets. That would be helped significantly if rabbis declared that eating meat and other animal products is halachically unjustifiable today. Based on Jewish teachings, there are at least six halachic reasons for rabbis to do this: ...
Earth Etude for Elul 20
Healing the Soil, Healing the Soul
by Rabbi Robin Damsky
~ I live a life of privilege. From being a single mother, I have a student loan debt for myself and my daughter that would take 20 debt cancellations to settle. I am approaching Medicare age and my hair thins by the hour. But I am healthier than most. I dance. I understand and prepare healthy food. I teach people about the earth. As a Jew I am in the minority, but I have a voice, and a platform through which to share and amplify that voice. I am newly married to the love of my life. And I live atop a mountain ...
Earth Etude for Elul 19
A New Way to Do Teshuvah
by Maxine Lyons
~Doing teshuvah means to me being responsible for turning toward my better or higher self to improve personal relationships and as well as performing my share for all beings in this coming year. I feel more responsible to contribute to and join others in actions that promote more beneficial positive actions for climate change.
In that spirit of responsibility and commitment, I am also honoring the memory of Rachel Carson and her impactful and revolutionary book, Silent Spring. She advocated that each ...
Earth Etude for Elul 18
Selichot [forgiveness]
by De Fischler Herman
~What is the color of forgiveness?
Is it pink, delicate as the bloom of a Peace rose?
Is it green, refreshing like the mist from the sparkling sea?
Is it red, warm as the rock in the desert sand?
Is it yellow, bright as the sunflower in summer's field?
Is it blue, cool as the water under the azure sky?
Is it brown, rich like the soil beneath our weary feet?
Is it black, dark like the night surrounding each of us?
It must be white,
reflecting God's light
Crafting peace
Healing wounds
...
Earth Etude for Elul 17
On Green Burials
by Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin
~For seventy years this earth has cared for me. It has sustained my body with gifts from its own; given me firm places to take a stand and soft places to lay my head; it has thrilled me and comforted me, delighted me and frightened me. It has cradled my children and helped them grow. And it has done all this asking only one thing in return: “Tend well to me so that I may tend well to others after you.”
For the last fifteen years I have tried to live up to this request. I have worked in the environmental arena ...
Earth Etude for Elul 16
Learning Turning from the World of Plants
by Nina Judith Katz
~I like to spend time playing with plants, both in the woods and in the garden. There is something profoundly grounding about connecting deeply with the earth, whether through my feet feeling the tree roots as I walk a forest trail or my hands burrowing in as I wildcraft, weed, plant, and harvest. This grounding helps me feel my place in the world: among the plants, part of their world, their roots merging with mine. Through them, I feel my own place in the world.
As I both weed and harvest weeds, I ...
Earth Etude for Elul 15
Embracing Change or the Muck at the Bottom of the Pond
by Rabbi Judy Kummer
~Change doesn’t come easy for most of us. Many know the joke about the Buddhist monk who says to a hot dog vendor: "Make me one with everything." Chuckling, the vendor assembles the hot dog, gives it to the monk and says "that will be $4, please." The monk hands over a $20 bill, which the vendor pockets. After a moment, the monk asks for his change, at which point the vendor taps his chest and responds, “Change? Ah, change must come from within.”
I grew up in a family not known ...
Earth Etude for Elul 14
For Gentle Change
by Rabbi Ora Nitkin-Kaner
The term ‘climate change’ can feel overly vague in part because of the ambiguity of the word ‘change.’ Change can come quickly or slowly. Change can feel welcome or catastrophic. Change can be the result of concerted, value-based effort—teshuvah—or carry the blunt force of surprise.June of this year was the first time I breathed in the smoke of distant wildfires. I knew it was a mix of luck and privilege that had shielded me up til then. I knew the smoke was coming, but the lived experience was still a ...
Earth Etude for Elul 13
Skit: Can Humans Be a Blessing?
by Bill Witherspoon
Historical note: The Green Team at Congregation Bet Haverim, Atlanta created a lay-led service on July 15, 2022, called “Blessings on the Climate.” Our guest d’var presenter was meteorologist and JCAN-GA advisor Mark Papier. To balance Mark’s serious (also hopeful) message, we did this silly skit with two of our funniest members as mimes. Because of a technical glitch, only the tail end of the skit was preserved on ...
Earth Etude for Elul 12
Growth and Re-Growth
by Rabbi Shahar Colt
~I used to work in a building next to what appeared to be an abandoned parking lot. Mostly it was a sheet of broken up concrete. The lines separating parking spaces were barely visible, and a huge tree stood somewhere near the center. Over the course of the spring and summer, weeds would grow, pushing through the spaces between the concrete, breaking it further with the slow persistence of plants. By late summer, the goldenrod was blooming and I sneezed as I biked by. From the street, the space was so full of weeds you ...
Earth Etude for Elul 11
50 Years Later, the Work Continues
by Rabbi Susan Elkodsi
~When I was in junior high, I was in the Environment Club, and one of our activities was a monthly recycling drive for newspapers and magazines. People would save them, bring them to the school, and we’d load up the truck. Then, the advisor would drive it to a place that would pay the club. The guys loved it, especially when someone included back issues of Playboy in with the rest of the papers. Then the girls were doing all the work.
It's 50 years later, and where are we? We’re now recycling all kinds ...
Earth Etude for Elul 10
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 in front of a diptych of West Virginian children coal miners from the 1800s with Congolese children lithium miners, I am wearing Ellza Coyle's VHS tape-ribbon hand-knitted, moebius-looped ...
Earth Etude for Elul 9
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 and moons, thousands of solar systems and galaxies?
And I wonder how you feel when you look up into the vast space and how see how very big it is?
I wonder what you feel when you realize that you are part of it…and also that it is part of you?
And ...
Dvar Torah for Parshat Ki Taitzi: Can Compassion to a Bird Help Bring Moshiach?
If you come across a bird's nest on any tree or on the ground, and it contains baby birds or eggs, then, if the mother is sitting on the chicks or eggs, you must not take the mother along with her young. You must first chase away the mother, and only then may take the young. (Deuteronomy 22:6- 7)
What is the reason for this unusual mitzvah? Maimonides argues that we send away the mother bird to teach us compassion. He insists that animal mothers, just as human mothers, suffer when their offspring are harmed. In Part 3, Chapter 48 of the Guide to the ...
Earth Etude for Elul 8
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 “Canadian Wilderness” or “The Life of a Voyager”.
One verse sings:
“Call of the lonely looncoyotes howling at the moonwind rustling through the treesthat’s a Canadian breezesmoke rising from the fireup through the trees in a stately spirebreathe a sigh in the ...
Earth Etude for Elul 7
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 She bring us out from the demonic fire (4)
Selfishness
The harmful impulse
May She cause us to cleave to the good impulse and acts of repair (5)
Deeds of healing
In wisdom She opens the gates of righteousness (1, ...