1989 results for tag: Uncategorized

On What Does the Earth Rest?

In honor of Rosh HaShanah, a post from Rabbi Nina Cardin (http://blog.bjen.org/) dated September 27th, 2011: When the rabbis-of-old mused about the nature of the universe, their telescope was the Tanakh (the Bible), their philosophical society the pathways of Yavneh and Babylon. Without advanced technology, with no peering devices beyond their own eyes, they used the latest - which is to say the earliest - source of knowledge they had, the texts of their tradition. They asked: "On what does the earth rest? How does it stay up, stay put, stay stable? What supports it?" (Even framing the question was a leap of faith, ...

The Sacred Trees of Betar

Dear Friends, I love how stories contain so much more than just what they are “about”. Like seeds from an ancient world, they have the ability to surprise and grow in unpredictable ways. Check out this obscure story from the Talmud (Gittin 55a, from Ein Yaakov, 1999 English translation): “Because of a (broken wheel) from a carriage, Betar was destroyed. [How did that happen?] It was the custom in Betar that when a boy was born the parents would plant a cedar tree, and when a girl was born they planted a pine tree. When they got married the tree was cut down, and a bridal canopy was made of the branches. One day the ...

This Ecofeminist Doula’s favorite Jewish practice? Mikveh!

There are so many reasons to love the mikveh (Jewish ritual bath). My love for mikveh inspired me to keep kosher, observe the Jewish Sabbath, and cover my hair as a married woman. Here are a few of my personal favorite things about the mikveh: 1. Immersing into the Earth’s waters Mikveh water must meet certain requirements of being naturally existing, as from a natural body of water or harvest from the rain. Any large enough body of naturally occurring water can be a mikveh. The ocean is the largest mikveh in the world. When a woman immerses in the mikveh, she is entering the womb of the feminine Earth, calledAdamah in ...

This Year We Meditate

We've been building towards this event for a long time. On October 18th, in the year of 5772, we will have a different kind of Sukkot. We will be building a Sukkah on our organic fertile land, on the land that we cultivated in West Rogers Park, the land that has given us our strong backs. And we will be collaborating with the Center for Jewish Mindfulness and participating in a community meditation led by Rabbi Jordan Bendat-Appell. I know, I know, a Sukkah is meant to be dwelled in according to the mitzvot. But, I wasn't raised in a community that did that. Nor do I particularly want to spend the night outside in the ...

What’s this Rosh HaShanah thang?

Dear chevra, When the Talmud takes up Hanukkah, it begins, “Mah zot Hanukkah, What’s this Hanukkah, anyway?” The ancient Rabbis did not like its military overtones. But they took great delight in Rosh Hashanah. It’s more than a “new year”: “Rosh” means “head” or top,” but “shanah” is from a root that means both “change” and “repetition.” Only makes sense if you think of a spiral, where a new turning grows from an older reality. Transformation. We are gifted this year that just as Rosh Hashanah approaches, one of the key ...

Recycling Alone

The environmental movement has not succeeded in protecting the environment. After all the lobbying, all the fundraising, all the laws and corporate partnerships, I would have expected to see more progress. Wouldn’t you? Instead, it seems that the environmental protection is weakening. Resources are being used more rapidly than ever. I hear more, and more heated, arguments against environmental protection than I used to. It seems that there is more and more intensive pursuit of carbon-based energy sources (hydro-fracking, off-shore oil drilling, etc.). In the court of public opinion and in the court of resource use, it ...

Aftermath of Irene and Lee and Nature’s Answers

As we head into this New Year, let us reflect on the impact our activites have on our local surroundings, in our own neighborhoods and communities. We were recently made keenly aware of the devestation and havoc that could be wreaked on our local watershed, the Chesapeake, from two recent major storms. As Rabbi Nina Cardin explains in her blog from September 16 and 21, 2011 (http://blog.bjen.org/): While we are basking in lovely fall weather, the Bay is taking a beating. Courtesy of our recent storms. Click here to see the total matter suspended in the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays (before and after the storm comparisons). ...

Results of Jewcology Leadership Trainings

“I enjoyed it very much and found the narrative format very powerful and the process even therapeutic.” - Jewcology Leadership Training Participant “…I felt empowered to tell my story… and I felt the intense writing sessions forced me to focus in on the most important aspects of my story. I fully intend to use what I've learned in ‘the real world’!” - Jewcology Leadership Training Participant “It taught me to articulate my motivations, and the importance of doing so to engage others in change.” - Jewcology Leadership Training Participant With the support of the ...

The groundbreaking Festival of Eden – this Sunday!

Fun + Meaning == A Complete Life Compass. Come get a big dose of both fun and meaning at the innovative Festival of Eden, this Sunday, Sept. 25th, 2011, 12-7p at Eden Village Camp! 392 Dennytown Road, Putnam Valley, NY 10579 Celebrate the Organic Oneness of Life, all People and the Earth: farming and greening workshops organic farm-to-table food live music ADULTS $30, YOUTH AND STUDENTS $20 CONTACT ELANA FOR GROUP RATES WHAT IS EDEN VILLAGE CAMP? Eden Village Camp will be hosting the first annual Festival of Eden, a day full of farming and greening workshops, local organic food from our own and ...

Workshop: Urban Composting – From Scraps to Soil

This year during Chol HaMoed Sukkot we will connect to the earth with our hands in the soil. I am teaching friends and neighbors how to compost right here in the city. I've partnered with a nifty new start-up for this inaugural venture. In the future, this workshop will be taught in the context of Jewish education, just like we did/do at the Teva Learning Center. Read more and sign up at the link. Most of all, tell your friends in Chicago. Shana tova! http://www.dabblehq.com/events/urban-composting-scraps-to-soil/ Urban Composting: Scraps to Soil Sunday Oct 16th 2:00pm - 4:00pm Waste. We all make it. But is your ...

Fostering Environmentally Sustainable Behavior

Many of us who want to get people to behave in an environmentally sustainable way, tell them why they should do so. Sometime we even tell them how to do so. But research studies confirm what many of us have learned through personal experience. For most people, having the right attitudes, values and information is not sufficient to produce the amount of environmentally sustainable behavior that we would like. I attended Doug McKenzie-Mohr’s workshop on Fostering Sustainable Behavior: An Introduction to Community Based Social Marketing and learned much about how to be more effective. Sometimes, doing the right thing requires too ...

A Thing of Beauty

(Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin explores nature's attempt at maintaining permeable surfaces, right in her own yard, in her blog from September 15, 2011: http://blog.bjen.org/) An enterprising man in a white pick-up truck came to the house yesterday, lured no doubt by the state of our driveway. He was not the first. Trolling for work in these difficult times, such eager workmen drive around neighborhoods like mine checking out the state of people's driveways. They knock on your doors, tuck rolled-up brochures under your handles and otherwise find ways to tell you about their driveway repair services. No doubt he saw our driveway (yup, ...

A Sense of Wonder- Video Blog

Do you know this text- "Civilization will not be destroyed for lack of knowledge, but for lack of wonder" by Abraham Joshua Heschel? I confess, at first, while I wanted to love it, I doubted it. After all, aren't educators in the business of knowledge? But then, I remembered this quote by Rachel Carson: "If I had influence with the good fairy...I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life." SPOILER ALERT: This video blog records a reflection of these texts- my realization that wonder makes all the difference. What is the power of ...

Clean Earth to Till: An Environmental Vision of Redemption

The concept of Tikkun ‘Olam (the repair or healing of the world) in a contemporary form has been extensively used in Jewish social justice ethics over the last 50 years. In this iteration of Tikkun ‘Olam, there is a high degree of human freewill, instead of divine intervention, as the chief means by which the world will be perfected. But what do Jewish environmentalists imply when they use Tikkun ‘Olam? What kind of Jewish environmental perfection are we seeking? This is an important question because even if we are seeing the repair or perfection of the world as a symbolic and not literal goal, the concept of redemption we ...

Hazon Shared Shabbat Dinner

St. Louis JEI and our local Jewish Community Center sponsor a wonderful community supported agriculture (CSA) program through Hazon. Each week from May through October, those who have signed up receive a share of produce from a local, organic family farm. In addition to helping the environment by buying local and organic, being a member of the Hazon CSA introduces you to new foods you never knew you liked. This past August, members of the Hazon CSA had a shared Shabbat Dinner. Along with stimulating dinner conversation, we shared dishes made with fresh CSA ingredients such as gazpacho with fam fresh tomatoes and cucumbers and a southwest casserole ...

Spring and Summer 2012 Fellowship Applications Now Available!

Urban Adamah, based in Berkeley, CA, is a three-month intensive residential leadership training program for young adults ages 20-29, that integrates urban organic farming, social justice work and progressive Jewish living and learning. Twelve Urban Adamah Fellows are selected each season to operate an organic farm and educational center, intern with community organizations addressing issues at the intersection of poverty, food security and environmental stewardship, and learn an approach to Jewish tradition that opens the heart and builds joyful community. Applicants do not need any farming for Jewish knowledge to participate. Fellows come from a wide ...

GZA Leads KKL-JNF Effort Against Fracking in Israel

NEW YORK (Sept. 16, 2011) — Hydraulic fracturing and in-situ retorting for oil in Israel should be banned in Israel pending further research into the environmental effects of the relatively new fossil-fuel extraction techniques, according to a new report issued by Israel’s Keren Kayemet L’Yisrael / Jewish National Fund (KKL-JNF) at the initiation of the Green Zionist Alliance. The report and its recommendations, which were drafted and approved unanimously by a KKL-JNF committee convened and chaired by Green Zionist Alliance representative Dr. Orr Karassin, constitutes the official policy of KKL-JNF according to the ...

Hydrofracking and the Book of Job

By Rabbi Lawrence Troster Most scholars believe that chapter 28 of the Book of Job is a later poetic addition into the text. The poem is nonetheless a beautiful hymn to Wisdom (Hokhmah) and a meditation on how to acquire it. The unknown Wisdom teacher who composed this poem is warning us that we cannot find wisdom in the ingenuity of human activity, which can even encompass the searching the depths of the Earth through the mining of precious metals and jewels. “Man sets his hand against the flinty rock and overturns mountains by the roots. He carves out channels through rock; his eyes behold every precious thing. He dams ...

Advertising opportunity in Seattle Spanish/English green living magazine! :)

It's called Eco-Logica Magazine. Please email inquiries to sbedder@ecologicamagazine.com. I will be happy to email you our media kit and answer any questions it doesn't cover. Thanks!

Easy Ways to Use Less Paper

One of Judaism’s important teachings is bal tash’chi, which means “you shall not waste.” In Deuteronomy 20:19, Jews are advised not to cut down or destroy trees, even in a time of war. Using less paper is one way you can do your part to save trees. You can also reduce the use of water and the environmental effect of chemicals that are used to manufacture the paper. It is very easy to use less paper and make a difference to the environment: Don’t discard paper that has only been printed on one side. “GOOS” paper is still Good On One Side. Flip it over and use it to print internal ...