342 results for tag: Community Leaders
Earth Etude for Elul 18: Perfection
by Rabbi Katy Allen
Perfection.
I've been thinking about it a lot.
Intellectually, I know I can't be perfect. Inside me, in hidden spaces, I feel like I'm not supposed to make mistakes. Which would, of course, mean seeking perfection.
Perfection is supposed to belong only to G!d, though I'm not sure I know what that means. Sometimes, when I'm able embrace my humanness, it's incredibly freeing to acknowledge that I don't have to be perfect. But I also realize there's a balance between not trying to be perfect all the time and not trying to never make mistakes.
I experience different kinds of feelings when I think about striving ...
Earth Etude for Elul 17: The Birds
by Rabbi Margaret Frisch Klein
“Return again. Return again.
Return to the land of our soul.”[1]
The liturgy sings.
I hear it in my head.
This is the season of returning.
~
It’s quiet here.
~
A steaming cup of coffee,
Billowing clouds of whipped cream.
We thought it would be different by now.
Stay at home. Wear a mask. Wash your hands.No guests for Shabbat dinner.
~
Inside,
~
It’s quiet. So very quiet.
Too quiet.
And lonely.
~
Ready to begin my morning,
~
I choose a book
Ready to read,
I open the back door,
Coffee cup and book in hand.
Ready to sit on the ...
Earth Etude for Elul 16: Lessons Learned from my Garden
by Maxine Lyons
Reflecting on my connection to t’shuvah means returning more mindfully to positive words and actions and performing mitzvot - commandments. T’shuvah also includes recognizing our connection to the earth, and for me, learning what my garden has to teach me. In a short book, Don't Throw in the Trowel, the author quips, "a garden is a sublime lesson in the unity of humans and nature.” A good garden to me is one that is well planned and cared for, and I am grateful to the Earth’s wisdom and resilience to provide the basis for plants, shrubs and trees to grow and flourish if given the correct nutrients.
As ...
Earth Etude for Elul 15: Counting to the Next Shmita Year
by David Krantz
Among our more under-appreciated traits, we Jews are counters. We count for a prayer quorum, we count the omer, we count the days of the months to know when our holidays are. We might know the days of the week by their names – Sunday, Monday — but in Hebrew they are Yom Rishon, the First Day, and Yom Sheni, the second day. And before borrowing their current names from the Babylonian calendar, the Jewish months were numbered. What we now know as Elul was once the Sixth Month, leading to the Seventh Month that we now call Tishrei.
Counting can (ideally) foster planning and patience. It is by counting that we know when to do ...
Earth Etude for Elul 14: Turkey Tails and Teshuvah
by Rabbi Marisa Elana James
In the park near my house is a large tree that fell last winter, the trunk slowly falling into decay thanks to four seasons of sun and rain and snow and wind slowly transitioning it back to the soil. When I pass it on walks, I always stop to see what’s new on the slowly-rotting trunk, because I’ve learned that it’s just as beautiful as the living, flowering trees that surround it.
Mushrooms can grow incredibly fast, seemingly appearing from one day to the next, helping break down dead wood while taking nourishment from it. And they don’t need to be exotic to be fascinating. My current favorite mushroom is ...
Earth Etude for Elul 13: Crater Lake
by Rabbi Shira Shazeer
Many months after the world changed
After worry, adjustment, connections lost and found
Relearning how to live
How to work
How to family
How to community
~
After holding on
Holding together
Holding, holding,
~
I took to the open road
Family in tow
To see the land and the wonder it holds
~
To reach out
and in
and rediscover
Who am I
Wherever I am
In this world
~
I am no Thoreau
Not Diana of the Dunes
Alone with the world
In quiet contemplation
Rugged self sufficiency
Blissful isolation
~
I sought the beauty and peace of the world
...
Earth Etude for Elul 12~Shmita: The Seven Year Switch
by Mirele B. Goldsmith
This Rosh HaShanah is also the start of the Shmita, the Sabbatical Year. The Torah’s Shmita focuses on land as the nexus of our relationship to Earth and demands that we let it rest from the damage caused by agriculture. To ensure that everyone can participate, all debts are released. During the Shmita year the produce of the land is shared so that everyone has what they need to survive. Today, Earth is threatened by the exploitation of fossil fuels that is causing damage that was unimaginable to our ancestors. But Shmita gives me hope. The underlying assumption of the commandment to observe ...
Earth Etude for Elul 11: Morning Prayer
by Judith Felsen
I awaken to a world
uncertain of its future
…Your will…???
~
I perceive an earth
in conflict and divided
…Divine design…???
~
I envision a tomorrow
wondering and doubtful
Heavenly plan…???
~
I imagine next year’s future
knowing it may not arrive
Exalted humbling…???
~
I experience uncertainty
life’s newness in unknowns
Celestial opening…???
~
I dissolve myself in guidance
fused in trust
Divine order… ???
~
I enroll as one
in service building earth anew
Majesty’s request…???
~
I become a vehicle of reconstruction
grateful ...
Earth Etude for Elul 10: Too Much of a Good Thing, or When All You’ve Ever Wanted is Really Too Much
by Rabbi Judy Kummer
When this summer started, we in the Northeast were facing a drought. The levels of water in area lakes seemed to be down by as much as 4 feet, and rivers that should have been tumbling with early spring melt weren’t rushing and gurgling so much as dribbling, the vegetation on their nearby banks a droopy stunted mess. I was skeptical that the seedlings I had nurtured indoors all winter would survive if planted in my garden.
And then, as we moved into summer, the rains began to fall. Where we gardeners may have expected an occasional rainfall to water our gardens, rainfall which would need to be supplemented with regular ...
Can the Climate Crisis Bring Israeli and Diaspora Jews Together?
by Dr. Dov Maimon and Ambassador Gideon Behar
~The challenge of climate change may constitute a unique opportunity for joint action, especially among young Jews in Israel and the Diaspora, that would not only benefit the entire world, but also help create a renewed sense of mission for the Jewish people. Jews from across the globe could be mobilized for a task that transcends narrow Jewish interests: that of building an ecologically and socially responsible world, or in traditional Jewish terms: Tikkun Olam.
Unlike the issue of human rights that galvanized young people a generation ago but also led to many disagreements, the climate crisis ...
Earth Etude for Elul 9~ Environmental Justice and the Legacy of Redlining: A Call for Teshuvah
by Courtney Cooperman
Jewish teachings about environmental stewardship emphasize our responsibility to protect Creation for future generations. In the Garden of Eden, God instructs Adam and Eve: “Take care not to spoil or destroy My world, for if you do, there will be no one to repair it after you” (Midrash Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7:13). Although Judaism frames our responsibility to care for the planet in forward-looking terms, our commitment to environmental protection demands that we look backwards, too. The concept of teshuvah requires that we consider the connection between historic injustices and who bears the burdens of environmental ...
Earth Etude for Elul 8: Not What I Want
by Rabbi Benjamin Weiner
On the road
to the farmstore
in my electric car,
the baby starting
to doze in her safety
seat, and the man
in his cold British
tones, explaining
to the listeners
an inexorable future
of unmanageable heat,
and the hostess says:
I’m sorry, but
that’s all the time
we have, and
she moves on to
the new war
in Afghanistan.
~
In the mornings,
when I wake
too early, and hear
the sound of cars
on the highway
by my door, I
lie as still as
possible, willing
the fixity I can
no longer uncover
in the outer world
to sink into my bones.
~
...
Earth Etude for Elul 7: Trees from my travels spell hope for civilization
by Susie Davidson
Desert trees in Los Cerillos, New Mexico Trees by the Mississippi River in Burlington IowaTrees with a red bush accent in Yorba Linda, CaliforniaTrees on a red rock in the American Southwest
When people admire my frequent traveling, I always say yes, but it's budget travel. "But that's the best way to really see places," they usually respond.
It's true. Not only do I get to mingle with locals and walk all over, but on buses and trains, you see the outer landscapes.
You see the fields, the hills, the bodies of water, the crops and the grazing animals. When lucky, you see the coast. And when super lucky, you see ...
Earth Etude for Elul 6: I Am a Terrible Gardener
by Rabbi Megan Doherty
I am a terrible gardener. But I garden anyway.
I hate weeding. I water my plants too much, or too little.
I don’t know from fertilizer, or mulch, or those fancy cages which keep out the deer and the birds.
I live in rural Ohio, and when I look at the thriving mini-farms my neighbors create and tend, I want to throw my hands up in despair.
But I plant.
One year, my dad showed up at our house with a bunch of lumber and built raised beds in our backyard. The process was a beacon for awestruck kindergartners, who showed up with wide eyes and endless questions and were eventually allowed to ‘help’.
Our ...
Earth Etude for Elul 5: Choosing Life as Nerds for the Earth
by Harvey Michaels
~Moses’ final message from G-d: This day…I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live. For millennia we have reflected on what it means to choose life; realizing that it is not always our life we’re choosing – our choices are more about our children and theirs; our communities, and our world.
What does it mean to Choose Life for the Earth? In recent years, I’m privileged to ask this question to classrooms of talented young people, and learned that when given the space to creatively engage this question, informed by science and ...
Earth Etude for Elul 4: A Letter to Mother Earth
by Rabbi Judy Schindler
Dear Mother Earth,
As we spiritually make our way through the month of Elul and approach the anniversary of your and our creation, you are in our prayers for healing.
An illness extends across the globe – COVID-19. We know that you can feel it. You wonder why people wear masks when the air should be so perfect to inhale.
You cringe that we have come to fear rains and their floods, winds and their consequent hurricanes, when instead we should stand in awe of the miraculous cycles of your natural world.
We have learned many lessons during the pandemic.
Mother Earth, we have learned how ...
Earth Etude for Elul 3: Joining Fifty Years of Mystic River Watershed Environmental Advocacy
by Karen L. Grossman
In 2009 I was invited to get involved with the Mystic River Watershed Association, established in 1972 with a long, hard mission of environmental advocacy. As a board member for 10 years, I was able to admire how we partnered with other groups to champion environmental changes for MA, pursuing concerns with land use and transportation, involving the location of the Alewife Red Line Station, a highway building moratorium, the Amelia Earhart Dam completion,
and greenway connectivity into Boston.
While tabling at events, I spread the word that MyRWA counteracted pollution and development, had targeted Grace Chemical’s ...
Earth Etude for Elul 2: Where Heaven Is Here…
by Andy Oram
What is heaven? How does one earn the right to enter heaven? I speculated on these questions by examining the Hebrew word for heaven, which is "shama'im" (שָׁמַיִם). The word is somewhat odd because it's plural, as indicated by the "im" (ים) ending. Here is my parsing of the word.
If "shama'im" (שָׁמַיִם) is plural, what's the singular? Take off the plural ending, and the singular appears to be simply "sham" (שָׁמ), which is Hebrew for "there." Basically, heaven is just multiple "theres."
Each of us has a "there" we would like to reach--an ideal self that we are trying to achieve. And each person has a ...
Earth Etude for Elul 1: An Etude is…
by Enid C. Lader
To listen to the Etude:
Listen to Earth Etude for Elul 1, read by Ilana Gauss
An etude is a short musical composition,
typically for one instrument,
designed as an exercise
to improve the technique
of the player.
Is it finger dexterity?
Bowing alacrity?
Air control?
Rhythmic concentration?
~
Standing beneath a canopy of trees
I hear the rhythm of their rustling leaves
I feel the heavenly breath of the breeze,
A breath so controlled it seems to last forever.
The tiny birds fly this way and that,
Alighting on one branch and darting off to the next
With a grace and alacrity that ...
Elul Is Coming and So Are the Etudes
by Rabbi Katy Z. Allen
We are rolling around to Elul now on the Jewish calendar. It feels too soon, and yet, it also feels right on time.
Too soon, because Elul always comes too soon. I'm never really ready. And right on time, because it's impossible to be ready.
The clock ticks, the calendar days fly by, and IT arrives, whatever IT may be. A wedding, a birth, death, the start of a new school year, Shabbat, a difficult conversation – whatever it is we are awaiting, it always comes too soon – or sometimes not soon enough – and it always comes on time.
Too soon, because Elul always comes too soon. I'm never really ...