1989 results for tag: Uncategorized

Living our Values at the Festival of Eden

Warm autumn sky, a mega-stage, bicycle-churned ice cream and over 450 people celebrating sustainable Jewish living.... On September 25, 2011, Eden Village Camp held our first annual Festival of Eden. The event was a tangible way for the community to experientially connect with principles of sustainability, environmentalism, and Jewish tradition. Eden Village Camp nourishes the connections between self, community, earth, and spirit with socially and environmentally conscious programming that is firmly rooted in Jewish tradition. The Festival of Eden showcased this philosophy through hands-on workshops on organic cooking, fermenting, keeping ...

Take the Food Stamp Challenge!

Join me for the 4th annual Fighting Poverty with Faith mobilization this week by taking the Food Stamp Challenge from Thursday, October 27th through Thursday November 3rd. The challenge is to limit yourself to a food budget of $31.50/week, $4.50/day or $1.50/meal. This is the average amount allotted a person who qualifies to receive food stamps. Almost 46 million or 15% of Americans live on food stamps or SNAP. I imagine that many are hungry, undernourished and live food insecure lives. Food insecurity exists when the availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or the ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially ...

thoughts about sustainability – from Noach to Abraham

Einat Kramer “And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.” Genesis 9:16 Parshat Noach details a terrible ecological disaster, the Flood that immerses the world in water and brings an end to all life – all because of man’s despicable behavior. In this parsha we meet Noach, the first “environmental activist” who acted upon a divine commandment to keep every species of animal safe on his ark. The Biblical story ends with an eternal covenant between G-d and ...

Forest Gardening: A Living Sukkah

Sitting in our Sukkah at Eden Village, a hexagon of black locust from our forest, I can gaze in each direction and learn something about the place I am dwelling. I can look out to the east and see our production fields, mostly in covercrop of oats, with an occasional row of cosmos or cabbage, and behind the fields a cob oven, and behind that, our kitchen. To the south, a wetland and forest, from which we harvested the black locust and the invasive phragmites which we used as schach to cover our Sukkah. To the north, the office, theatre,and share circle, center of the creative cyclone during the summer camp season. But to the west is my favorite ...

PRAY, PLANT, GROW

Wednesday, October 19, 2011 PRAY, PLANT, GROW repeat! Many of us are familiar with the Pray, Eat, Pray, pattern of Jewish practice. Well, in this Harvest Season- which is also the spiritual season of birth and renewal- a New Year brings us many opportunities for reflection, renewal and redemption. Today is Hoshana Rabbah, bringing us to the end of Sukkos, and time to put away our Lulav and Estrog- Let's take action and put into practice our words to connect mind, body and spirit, to live in a way that our life is our thoughts, deeds and actions. We jsut read in Koheles, that there is a time to plant and a time to sow- well ...

The many meanings of Sukkot

I love the holiday of Sukkot, and for many reasons. I feel it is a holiday with many meanings, and many lovely paradoxes. I love how Sukkot encourages us to spend more time in the outdoors, and yet how it encloses us within walls and a roof, even as we are exposed to the elements at the same time. I love how it reinforces our human ingenuity in building structures, and yet reminds us how fragile and impermanent these structures really are. I love its inherent earthy-ness, how it connects us to trees and fruits through the lulav and etrog, and also connects us to the heavenly spheres, as we stare at the moon and stars through the roof. As we ...

The Gardens of Antwerp

(reposted from Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin's blog, October 16, 2011: http://blog.bjen.org/) This is the city of Antwerp, circa 1572. It was one of the most cosmopolitan, creative, commercial cities of the 16th century, and home of some of the era's most impressive engravers and printers. I found this particular map in a charming book called Imagined Corners: exploring the world's first atlas. It offers a treatment of the political, social, economic, religious, intellectual and cultural trends that gave rise to this new format - a unified, portable, bound collection of maps of the entire known world. This "atlas" (the term ...

Sukkot for the Shretelech

I can’t help myself- this time of year, as cold winds start blowing, leaves begin to fall and music of the geese magically fills the air, I think of the Shretelech. Don’t you? What? You’ve never seen one before? What?! What?! You’ve never even heard of them before? Well, let me start from the beginning. Truthfully, I’m not totally shocked because as a guide who leads Shretelech expeditions, well, I’ve met all types in my day. The Shretelech (singular Shretele), are the little people. Others call them elves, fairies, or gnomes; but Jews from Eastern Europe call them by their Yiddish name, Shretelech....

“Water, Water Everywhere and Nor any Drop to Drink”: Praying for Rain at the Right Time and in the Right Amount

When I was in Israel for my Junior Year abroad in 1974, I remember that on Erev Sukkot the headline on the Jerusalem Post read: “Sukkot Starts Tonight, Weatherman Predicts No Rain.” For those of us in the Northeast this year Sukkot started with a lot of rain continuing a very wet few months that caused severe flooding in many areas. In Israel, rain at this time of year would very unusual which is why the Mishnah says the following: All the seven days [of the festival of Sukkot] a man must make the Sukkah his permanent abode and his house his temporary abode. If rain fell, when may one be permitted to leave it? When the porridge ...

Turning Waste Into Treasure

I read a story last week that really got my attention. It was posted on the New York Times Green Blog (see story here: http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/29/an-oil-bonanza-in-discarded-plastic/), and was discussing a company’s effort to convert discarded plastic into crude oil. Now I know this does not sound like the most environmentally friendly initiative, as the crude oil will eventually be utilized, resulting in the release of green house gases into the atmosphere. However, although I am a huge supporter of renewable energy, I think there is room for businesses such as this, in our effort to create a more sustainable society. ...

Almost Out of Time: Act Now to Save Samar

Israel's Samar sand dunes — and the unique animal species that live there — may be destroyed, unless we act now. (Photo courtesy of Taal Goldman of the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies) NEW YORK (Oct. 12, 2011) — The bulldozers and dump trucks are getting ready. Without intervention, they will begin carting away one of Israel’s unique ecosystems, the Samar sand dunes, home to species that live nowhere else on the planet. And soon, at the government’s initiation, the sands of Samar in Israel’s Arava Valley will be turned into concrete. Eilat needs sand for concrete, ...

Wangari Maathai and a billion trees

(Reposted from Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin's Blog from October 3, 2011: http://blog.bjen.org/) In the run-up to the New Year, a bit of news may have escaped noticed: "Wangari Muta Maathai died on September 25 (1940–2011). She was a Nobel Peace Laureate; environmentalist; scientist; parliamentarian; founder of the Green Belt Movement; advocate for social justice, human rights, and democracy; elder; and peacemaker. She lived and worked in Nairobi, Kenya." Her pioneering work, her unquenchable pursuit of justice, her unending optimism inspired millions around the world. She died at a time heavy with meaning in ...

Eco-Friendly Travels

Heading out of town for a fall foliage trip, a college homecoming event or to visit family members? While traveling does increase your carbon footprint, there are ways to minimize that impact by choosing wisely in terms of how you travel and where you stay. Keeping these tips in mind, it is possible to be environmentally-conscious as you plan your trip and thus to fulfill the Jewish principle of bal tashchit (reducing waste). Getting There Think about using rail service or express bus to get to your destination. Using public transit is better for the environment than using individual cars, and this is also a great way to relax and see the ...

“This is our nation’s Yom Kippur moment.” Testimony to State Department against Keystone XL Pipeline

Joelle Novey, Director Greater Washington Interfaith Power & Light Friday October 7 Testimony to State Department Against Keystone XL Pipeline Through Greater Washington Interfaith Power & Light, hundreds of congregations of all religious traditions work together on energy and climate issues. I am submitting into the record today hundreds of comment cards from local churches and synagogues where good folks have concluded that the Keystone XL Pipeline would do great harm, and that their religious traditions call them to speak out. These cards join thousands of online comments sent from religious folks around the country, ...

“Is this the pipeline that is desired of us?” Talk to Rally Against Keystone XL Pipeline

Joelle Novey, Director Greater Washington Interfaith Power & Light Delivered to Sept 2 2011 Rally Against the Keystone XL Pipeline Behind the White House I speak this afternoon on behalf of hundreds of congregations in the DC area that are working to respond to climate change in their sacred communities. These congregations work together through an organization called Interfaith Power & Light. And I speak as one of dozens of religious people – priests and ministers and rabbis, Christians and Jews and Muslims and Unitarian Universalists and Buddhists – who put their faith into action over the past two ...

The apples are finished.

Each year, before Rosh Hashanah, my family goes apple picking. It's a special tradition for each of us. Most of the other families are here to pick a few apples to be dipped in honey. Not us! As my husband likes to say, "we're hard core." When we get to the farm stand, we're here to pick apples. Maybe you’ve been there: You stand in between the trees that seem to go on and on forever. The apples beckon to you. After only 30 minutes, you probably have enough for Rosh Hashanah. But you’ve only just arrived! Once upon a time, we had to stop ourselves around this point, or we’d pick more than we could manage before they went bad. As ...

Why Sukkot might be better than Purim

Both holidays are about being joyous, celebration, and sharing your joy with community. Purim focused on the joy of not getting killed off as a people, while Sukkot celebrates the (hopefully) fruitful harvest, a result of hard human work and physical support (sun, rain) from G!d. Purim gets points for yummy treats, and I should know as the 4 year host of a hummentashen bake off. But Sukkot deals the upper hand for many reasons, including 7 whole days of fun. It is also one of the holidays with multiple names, two being: Zeman Simkhateinu, the Season of our Rejoicing and Chag Ha-Asif, the Festival of Ingathering. The sages tell us that we should ...

Isaiah’s Fast: This Yom Kippur, Volunteer, Donate & Mobilize

Yom Kippur, the ‘holiest’ day of the Jewish year. Millions of Jews worldwide get dressed up in white or their best attire and sit together in synagogue, hungry, lamenting all the bad things we have done as a community of flawed individuals. When the average person is asked about Yom Kippur, fasting is first on their mind. Fasting has become a central tenet of Yom Kippur practice, but what is a fast and why do we do it? Three of the most common modern arguments for fasting include: Through the act of fasting we cleanse our bodiy and soul; we keep ourselves focused on prayer and are not distracted by food and the socializing that ...

Teva Ivri – Shana Tova

Teva Ivri - Jewish Nature – social-environmental regeneration in Israel "After the Holydays, all will be renewed Regular weekdays will return, renewed, Air, soil, rain and fire, You too, you too Will be renewed". (Naomi Shemer) "After the Holydays, all will be renewed" – thus tells us the late Naomi Shemer, one of Israel's leading songwriters, and indeed the season of the High Holydays creates a vivid sense of a "transition period" leading to change and renewal. Rosh Hashanah, the holiday that opens the High Holidays, marks, according to tradition, the completion ...

Kayamut Chickens

Evonne speaks and we get a close-up of the Kayamut chickens, brought to our Sustainability Circle by Sharon Turpie.