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Climate Policy: 7 Principles & a Yardstick rooted in Biblical & Jewish Wisdom

Climate Policy: 7 Principles & a Yardstick rooted in Biblical & Jewish Wisdom By Rabbi Arthur Waskow | 10/30/2009 Noah Climate policy Global Scorching Hanukkah As US governmental bodies like the Senate and the world’s governments in bodies like the mid-December UNClimate Conference in Copenhagen falter and delay, it becomes ever clearer: The governments will take vigorous action only if the grass-roots public insists on serious change. We encourage you to take action rooted in the following Seven Principles and a unified Yardstickthat should underlie Jewish ...

Interfaith Work on Climate Crisis at Muslim-Initiated Vienna Meeting, 2009

Interfaith Work on Climate Crisis at Muslim-Initiated Vienna Meeting, 2009 By Editor | 11/2/2009 Global Scorching Interreligious Relations Rabbis Phyllis Berman & Arthur Waskow July, 2009 Dear friends, The two of us thought you would be interested in efforts to address the climate crisis that arose during meetings in Vienna last week, of the Follow-up Committee for the Madrid World Interfaith Dialogue held a year ago. Both meetings were sponsored by the Muslim World League and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, especially in his religious capacity as Protector of the Two Sacred Places. ...

Hanukkah for Humanity: 1 Day’s Oil for 8 Days’ Need

Hanukkah for Humanity: 1 Day's Oil for 8 Days' Need By Rabbi Arthur Waskow | 11/17/2009 Festivals, Life-cycle, & Climate crisis Hanukkah Click here to see a listing of all recent blog posts Hanukkah: Festival of light in a dark time, action in times of despair. Rededication, reconsecration, in times of desecration and disaster. The Green Menorah: A living, growing Tree Of Light in the ancient Temple, in the sacred temple of the Earth today, and in the hearts of those who join in covenant to heal our climate, the Interbreathing of all life. Our earth: desecrated. Our ...

Dear Earth, happy Hanukkah! — 8 days, 8 actions

Dear Earth, happy Hanukkah! -- 8 days, 8 actions By Rabbi Arthur Waskow | 12/7/2009 Festivals, Life-cycle, & Climate crisis Hanukkah After lighting your menorah each evening, dedicate yourself to healing our climate: Day 1 (this year, Shabbat). Automobile: If possible, choose today or one other day a week to not use your car at all. Other days, lessen driving. Shop on-line. Cluster errands. Carpool. Don’t idle engine beyond 20 seconds. Day 2 (Saturday night & Sunday): International: That evening (or if it’s easier to organize, another evening this week), hold a public communal ...

Rainbow, Oil Slicks, & Sabbatical Year: A tale of two covenants — broken

Rainbow, Oil Slicks, & Sabbatical Year: A tale of two covenants -- broken By Editor | 5/5/2010 Noah Behar Global Scorching By Rabbi David Seidenberg See his Website at http://www.neohasid.org/ Monday, May 10, 2010, is also the 27th of Iyyar—the date when Noah’s family and the animals left the ark and received the rainbow covenant. There is a special correlation between this week’s Torah portion and the rainbow covenant of Noah’s time. And there is a foreboding contrast between the rainbow covenant and what’s happened in the Gulf of Mexico. ...

Observing Tisha B’Av as a Prayerful Political Act

Observing Tisha B'Av as a Prayerful Political Act By Rabbi Arthur Waskow | 5/14/2010 Devoting Jewish Holidays to Peace Global Scorching Tisha B'Av What specifics could we imagine for observing Tisha B’Av in such a way as to grow political energy toward preventing climate disaster? The basic rubric would be to see the Earth today as a Holy Temple in danger of destruction, as the Temples in Jerusalem were destroyed. The Shalom Center is now developing a liturgy for Tisha B’Av that would embody this approach. In regard to Washington, this is what I imagine doing: ...

An Old/New Song For American Independence: “Yankee Doodle” vs. Big Oil & Big Coal

An Old/New Song For American Independence: "Yankee Doodle" vs. Big Oil & Big Coal By Rabbi Arthur Waskow | 6/14/2010 Festivals, Life-cycle, & Climate crisis Fourth of July Every movement to heal the world needs songs to lift the spirit. For a July 4 movement to declare the independence of the American people from the destructive top-down power of Big Oil, Big Coal, and other Big Corporations, there is an old song connected with July 4 that we can make new. The Song is Independent America’s first “national anthem”: Yankee Doodle. You can yourself actually ...

Burnt Offering: Tisha B’av.  Chapter 12, “Seasons of our Joy”

Burnt Offering: Tisha B'av. Chapter 12, "Seasons of our Joy" By Rabbi Arthur Waskow | 9/8/2001 Global Scorching Tisha B'Av War, Peace, & the Jewish Community Rabbi Arthur Waskow From SEASONS OF OUR JOY By Rabbi Arthur Waskow Copyright © 1980 by Arthur Waskow. Published by Beacon Press. [return to Tisha B'av Section] The rhythm of the seasons as a spiritual path and the spiritual history and meaning of each festival are described in the chapters of this book. Here they can be seen and heard in each of the Four Worlds of reality: the ...

Haftarah Noah: Rainbow Covenant

Haftarah Noah: Rainbow Covenant By Rabbi Arthur Waskow | 9/8/2001 Noah Earth Festivals, Life-cycle, & Climate crisis Rabbi Arthur Waskow Haftarah for the Rainbow Covenant [Blessed are You, the Breath of Life, Who makes of every human throat a shofar for the breathing of Your truth.] You, My people, burnt in fire, still staring blinded by the flame and smoke that rose from Auschwitz and from Hiroshima; You, My people, Battered by the earthquakes of a planet in convulsion; You, My people, Drowning in the flood of words and images That beckon you to eat ...

Taanit Tzibbur:  Communal Fast in Time of Calamity: drought, famine, war, etc

Taanit Tzibbur: Communal Fast in Time of Calamity: drought, famine, war, etc By Editor | 10/22/2002 17 Tammuz Devoting Jewish Holidays to Peace Festivals, Life-cycle, & Climate crisis Fasting for Peace and Justice War, Peace, & the Jewish Community Fasting for Peace and Justice: October 30, 2002 25 Mar-Cheshvan 5763 By Lee Moore (as of June 2010, Rabbi) & Rabbi Arthur Waskow Long ago, Jews chose when they were facing the calamities of drought, or plague, or famine, or war, to call the community to fast. By the time of the framing of the ...

New Haftarah for the Rainbow Covenant: Hebrew & English text

New Haftarah for the Rainbow Covenant: Hebrew & English text By Rabbi Arthur Waskow | 9/19/2003 Noah Earth Festivals, Life-cycle, & Climate crisis Rabbi Arthur Waskow, 9/19/2003

New Interfaith Freedom Seder for the Earth: Text of an Earth-Haggadah

New Interfaith Freedom Seder for the Earth: Text of an Earth-Haggadah By Rabbi Arthur Waskow | 2/3/2009 Festivals, Life-cycle, & Climate crisis Global Scorching Justice & immigration Pesach Environmental Justice Globalization and Economic Justice Interreligious Relations Justice and Gender SEDER FOR THE EARTH: Facing the Plagues & Pharaohs of Our Generation The Shalom Center has created the text and the organizing mechanisms for you to shape a new Freedom Seder for the Earth in your own community, challenging ...

From Hanukkah to Copenhagen: A Broad-Based Jewish Call to Action

From Hanukkah to Copenhagen: A Broad-Based Jewish Call to Action By Rabbi Arthur Waskow | 12/2/2009 Devoting Jewish Holidays to Peace Global Scorching Hanukkah Click here to see a listing of all recent blog posts Dear folks,

 At the initiative of The Shalom Center, a broad spectrum of American Jewish leadership has issued the following statement about Hanukkah and Copenhagen:
 “Hanukkah for Humanity” The traditions of rabbinic Judaism have long celebrated the Hanukkah miracle in which one day’s oil met eight days’ need. In that spirit, we join in ...

Beyond Copenhagen: Varied Jewish approaches to unscorching Earth

Beyond Copenhagen: Varied Jewish approaches to unscorching Earth By Rabbi Arthur Waskow | 12/20/2009 Global Scorching Jewish Renewal I am writing from the midst of a great winter storm. It is at moments like this that it is hard to convince our kishkes, our innards, that global “warming” is dangerous. That’s one of the reasons i insist on talking about “global scorching” — more honest to the geological reality and more evocative of the emotional reality. Copenhagen is over: at the official leadership level, a dismal failure. At the grass-roots level, it sprouted ...

The AVATAR film & TuB’Shvat: the ReBirthDay of trees & the Tree

The AVATAR film & Tu B'Shvat: the ReBirthDay of trees & The Tree By Rabbi Arthur Waskow | 1/11/2010 Shemot Bo Festivals, Life-cycle, & Climate crisis Global Scorching Tu B'Shvat World Empire Click here to see a listing of all recent blog posts Dear fellow-seekers for peace and healing of the earth, [Bottom line for this letter: I urge that multireligious groups together see the new film Avatar this month; learn with me by teleconference seminar on Thursday evening January 21 the connections between this film and the ...

Stop the Senate from Choking EPA & Earth to Death

Stop the Senate from Choking EPA & Earth to Death Climate policy Action Description: RIGHT NOW, WRITE YOUR SENATORS to stop the most destructive single action the US Senate could take toward the people of the United States: forbidding the Environmental Protection Agency from regulatingCO2 emissions. Background Information: Some Senators, to protect Big Oil and Big Coal from regulation that will save our children’s lives, are planning to choke the life out of EPA and thereby also choke our country and our planet in scorching heat. Senators led by Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who never saw an oil well she ...

Cash for Carbon: New Climate-Crisis Bill

Cash for Carbon: New Climate-Crisis Bill By Rabbi Arthur Waskow | 2/3/2010 Climate policy Click here to see a listing of all recent blog posts On February 1, 2010, I invested a very useful hour of my time in a national telephone conference call learning the Torah of a new bill to prevent climate disaster that has been nicknamed “cap-and-dividend” — a bill introduced by Senators Maria Cantwell (Dem, WA) and Susan Collins (Rep, Maine) that is very different from the present “cap-and0-trade” bills. . The Cantwell-Collins bill, formally known as the Carbon Limits and Energy for America&rsq...

Oil & Obama: “Chill, Baby, Chill!” — NOT “Drill, baby, drill”

Oil & Obama: "Chill, Baby, Chill!" -- NOT "Drill, baby, drill." By Rabbi Arthur Waskow | 4/2/2010 Climate policy NOT "Drill, baby, drill." That was some other politician's mantra. And there is a double meaning here: more oil drilling will scorch and burn the planet more, when what we need is cooling it down. What's with Obama? The President has run true to form in his announcement of ending the moratorium on off-shore drilling in part of the Atlantic Coast. Some reports suggest he did this in order to get Big Oil support for some version or other of the climate/ ...

US Climate Policy: Support for CLEAR Cantwell-Collings bill: “Cap & divident”

US Climate Policy: Support for CLEAR Cantwell-Collins bill: "Cap & dividend" By Rabbi Arthur Waskow | 4/22/2010 Climate policy The Shalom Center has joined in the letter below to US Senators from a number of faith-based organizations, supporting the Cantwell-Collins CLEAR bill (nicknamed “cap-and-dividend”). The bill itself and our reasons for supporting it are explained in the letter. Marked with asterisks below is a passage added to the letter at the specific urging of The Shalom Center. A number of non-faith-based organizations, such as AARP, are also supporting the CLEAR bill. The ...

God’s Earth is not for Burning

GOD’S EARTH IS NOT FOR BURNING By Rabbi Arthur Waskow | 5/4/2010 Global Scorching Tisha B'Av Click here to see a listing of all recent blog posts The oil-well disaster on the Gulf Coast of the United States may seem utterly the product of modern technology. But there are many teachings in Torah about precisely the spiritual failings that give rise to such disasters. The Jewish community could now take those teachings far more seriously and act far more vigorously to prevent such disasters than it has so far. Torah’s description of the earliest experience of the human race ...