1988 results for tag: Uncategorized

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 couldn’t see the concrete anymore, the greenery had fully overtaken the lot, a mix ...

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 of things, and people and companies are figuring out ways to make new materials ...

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 dress--(inspired by the artist’s loom-woven cassette-tape outfits). The VHS ...

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 God saw all there was in the universe and said ‘It is good’  In that ...

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 Perplexed, Maimonides writes: As far as pain is concerned, there is no real ...

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 evening glowsun goes down, those north winds blow” It paints a picture of ...

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, 6) And in understanding she diversifies created beings (1, 7) At the ...

Earth Etude for Elul 6

Blessed by Judith Felsen, Ph.D. ~Blessed are we who have strayed and returned called back by Your mercy, awakened from selfishness to holiness, from cruelty to kindness. Unseeing we concealed, justified, perfected, means to reach our ends, claim desires, perhaps ignorant of damage done, unaware of straying far from You. Detours often deadly to our peace, balance and well- being are brought to halt, corrected paths of our atonement filled, with deep regret, our shame and sadness, healthy guilt a guide of our return to holiness. Returned we recognize the place from which we came. Blessed we are to live in ...

Earth Etude for Elul 5

Priestly Atonement and Cleansing the Environment by Andy Oram ~Can you really have an impact on climate change by switching to veggie burgers or lowering the heat in Winter? How about making a change at work that shaves some of the carbon footprint off of your product? Do these really matter when the world continues to pump tons more carbon into the atmosphere each year? The Jewish tradition offers a useful perspective on this question in the afternoon Yom Kippur service, where we recreate the atonement ceremonies of the Temple's High Priest. Atonement is divided by this tradition into three parts that must be observed in strict order: first ...

Earth Etude for Elul 4

The Ultimate Emergency is a Cancer on the Earth, but It Can Be Successfully Treated by Deb Nam-Krane ~In 2022, after a decade of worsening symptoms that included erratic energy as well as digestive issues – and plenty of gaslighting – I was diagnosed with colon cancer. It was serious enough that even after every visible trace had been removed I needed to undergo chemotherapy treatments. Just as I should have gotten the attention I needed earlier, climate scientists should have been heeded when we were at "crisis", not "emergency". But once we identify the causes and agree on the treatments, improvements can be seen immediately.  Just as ...

Earth Etude for Elul 3

Turn it and Turn it Again by Leah Cassorla, Ph.D ~Our lives are marked by recurrences in time and season that nonetheless are not truly a circle, but rather a spiral, in which the return of the familiar sounds more like a harmonious echo than a repetition. Even Torah and holiday cycles regularly repeat and are never the same. This summer, with its heat waves, wildfires, and flood-causing storms, however, seems like a step out of time—in both the musical and seasonal senses. We’ve lost the rhythms of our days. We’ve become slaves. We live in a time of great availability. My calls, for example, come to my pocket, my purse, my desk. I ...

Earth Etude for Elul 2

'A Monument'al Vacation by Rabbi Steven J Rubenstein During the late spring, my wife and I joined her son and daughter-in-law on a trip to Vancouver Island off the western coast of Canada, bordering Seattle, Washington. So many things reminded me of previous events in my journeys that are so life-affirming. First and foremost were the majestic mountains of the Canadian Rockies, holding on to the last vestiges of snow in late May at their peaks. They reminded me of my seven years in Denver and my view of the American Rockies on my way to work as I prayed the words: “Mah rabu ma’asekha, Adonai...How wonderful are your works, Adonai;You ...

Earth Etude for Elul 1

Perception of Time by Thea Iberall, Ph.D. ~I ’m driving home from Marblehead where we commemorated Erev Tisha B’Av. My trip home seems so much faster than the trip there, even though my GPS says travel time is 45 minutes each way. As I stare out the window, watching headlights cut through the darkness, I’m baffled. Why can’t I measure actual time? We measure distance, size and number without difficulty. I can know if I can fit through a door or whether the leftover spaghetti will fit into a refrigerator container. I know how many fingers I have and I can point to where a sound is coming from. But I can’t judge the real time it ...

An Evening of Earth Etudes for Elul!

Join us for our Zoom Program on Thursday, August 24th from 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm EDT The 30 days of Elul (Elul 1 starts the evening of August 17) are a time for cheshbon hanefesh (soul searching) and teshuvah (return, repentance). They are a time to turn from the ways in which we have missed the mark and return to G!d and our best selves. Elul is a time to be reborn, transformed, and renewed. This year for the first time, JCAN-MA and Ma'yan Tikya be hosting "An Evening of Earth Etudes for Elul," a time of reading and reflection, during which selected Etude writers will join us to share their works and engage with us in medita...

The Earth Etudes for Elul are Coming!

by Rabbi Katy Z. Allen We’re noticing the sun is setting earlier each day. We’re lighting our Shabbat candles earlier each week. We’re rushing to pack into the remaining days of summer a last hike, a last day at the beach, a last cookout, a last camping trip. My daughter-in-law, a teacher, calls August the “Sunday of summer vacation”, when thoughts turn to the new school year ahead and the end of the freedoms of summer looms. The Jewish month of Elul, which begins in August, is the “Sunday of the Jewish year.” Elul is a time of reflection and preparation for the new year and the Yamim Nora’im, the Days of Awe. During Elul ...

Applying Religious Teachings To Reduce Abuses of Animals

                                Review of Animal Theologians       Animal Theologians, edited by long time British animal rights activists Andrew and Clair Linzey, has the potential to help shift our imperiled planet onto a sustainable path. Why? It can help move people, especially religious ones, to plant-based diets at a time when the world is rapidly heading inward a climate catastrophe and a major societal change to such diets is essential to efforts to avert a climate catastrophe.          Such a shift would sharply reduce emissions from cows and other ruminants of methane, a greenhouse gas over ...

My Four Articles On Restoring and Transforming the Ancient New Year For Animals

Below are my 4 articles on restoring and transforming the ancient. Jewish New Year for Animals. They were written several years ago, so I plan to write a new article updating the situation. Their titles are: An Audacious Initiative to Restore the Ancient New Year for Animals Top Ten Reasons for Restoring and Transforming the Ancient New Year for Animals Restoring and Transforming an Ancient Jewish Holiday Related to Animals An Overlooked Mitzvah: Tsa’ar Ba’alei Chaim  ———————————————- An Audacious Initiative to Restore the Ancient New Year for Animals The conditions under which ...

 Review of  “Judaism and Global Survival – 20th Anniversary Edition”

Tikun Olam. What a wonderful Hebrew phrase! Once again, my very dear friend Richard Schwartz has imbued the saying with more potent meaning than I think I have ever seen. This 20th anniversary edition of Judaism and Global Survival elevates that concept—the “Healing of the World”—to its most relevant position in the history not only of our people but of humanity in general. As we move from the Holocene to the Anthropocene era we face challenges never before experienced in our planet’s history as humanity itself drives the world we live on a relentless pathway to destruction. But this book is not just another litany of woe and ...

Dear Rabbi – How YOU Can Help Save the World

Shalom dear rabbi,     I have been fortunate to be involved with many rabbis in my 89 years, and I have always found you all to be the most dedicated people, committed to getting as many Jews as possible to live committed Jewishlives, filled with mitzvot and tikkun olam.     Because of this I very respectfully address this message to you. Your response could have an enormous and. Powerful effect on the future of Judaism and on our imperiled planet.     Recognizing and acting in response to the following three realities is the key to shifting our world onto a sustainable path: 1. Earth is rapidly approac...

A Tisha B’Av Message: How Do the Warnings Today Differ From Those of Jeremiah?

    A Tisha B’Av Message: How Do the Warnings Today Differ From Those of Jeremiah? Over 2,600 years ago, Jews failed to heed the warnings of the prophet Jeremiah about the importance of changing their ways, with the result that the first Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, one of many tragedies that occurred on that day, including the destruction of the second Temple as well.      There are comparisons between the warnings and threats in Jeremiah’s lifetime and those today that can provide insights that can be valuable in responding to current threats. 1. There are no prophets today like Jeremiah warning of the ...