Education Subscribe
A selection of initiatives, blogs, resources and communities on Jewcology which focus on education.
From the Blogs
Earth Etude for Elul 12- Growing Teshuva
- September 6, 2014
by Maxine Lyons I am often looking for ways to connect to teshuvah even during the leisurely days of summer. Teshuvah for me is turning to those thoughts and actions that help me to become my better self, following those practices that nourish my growth to know peace - shalom - and to reach greater wholeness - sh'lemut. As I pursue personal growth, I resonate to the Hebrew word, hitpatchut, growth through an openness and receptivity to change.This summer I have focused on ways to practice with greater compassion in how I spend my time and focus my energy as I take on ...
Earth Etude for Elul 10- Topsy Turvy Bus
- September 4, 2014
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by Rabbi Margaret Frisch Klein The world seems a little topsy turvy these days. A plane missing. 223 girls kidnapped in Nigeria. 3 teen agers kidnapped and murdered in Israel. A plane shot out of the sky. Israel in Gaza. Rockets in Israel. Too many children killed in the streets of Chicago. Too many deaths. When does it stop? In the Fox River Valley, Illinois, after a punishing winter of epic proportions, it is nice to be outside. Six congregations, part of the nascent Prairie Jewish Coalition, sponsored the Topsy Turvy bus. What is a ...
Earth Etude for Elul 8 – Waves on the Beach
- September 2, 2014
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by Rabbi Katy Z. Allen I stand on the beach. Waves-- I hear them, see them, rising, falling, splashing, foaming. Deep within me waves form, rise up, are released, unite with the ocean waves. Throughout my body sadness.... grief.... despair.... engulf me. The Earth is suffering. I cannot simply stand, sit, lie, relax. Act, I must, driven by my grief, by my love, by the waves, in order to live with myself, with the Holy One of Blessing-- who is able to quiet waves, in the sea, in my soul-- who continues ...
Using the New Jewcology
- August 29, 2014
Welcome to the new Jewcology! Using the site is pretty simple. Click on login — but your password from the old site won't work, so the first time you use the new site, click on "lost password" to set a new password: To create a new blog post, click on "Blogs" and then "Create new post." You can add a featured image: You can tag your blog post with keywords and phrases to help people find it easier: And when you're finished, just press "Publish"! You also can save your work as a draft and finish later; publish ...
Join Jewcology at the Teva Seminar!
- April 8, 2014
Jewcology is proud to be a partner in the 20th Annual Teva Seminar on Jewish Outdoor, Food, and Environmental Education! Monday, June 9 – Friday, June 13, 2014 at Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center Join us for a week dedicated to renewing our relationship with the earth, gaining garden education skills, and studying eco-Torah. The Teva Seminar is the premier annual professional development opportunity in the field of JOFEE: Jewish Outdoor, Food, and Environmental Education. Featuring leaders in the JOFEE field: Nili Simhai, Mordechai Leibling, Jakir ...
The Seder’s Innermost Secret — Charoset: Earth & Eros in the Passover Celebration
- April 8, 2014
There it sits on the Seder plate: charoset, a delicious paste of chopped nuts, chopped fruits, spices, and wine. So the question would seem obvious: "Why is there charoset on the Seder plate?" That's the most secret Question at the Seder – so secret nobody even asks it. And it’s got the most secret answer: none. The Haggadah explains about matzah, the bread so dry it blocks your insides for a week. The Haggadah explains about the horse-radish so bitter it blows the lid off your lungs and makes breathing so painful you wish ...
Environmental Tip of the Week: Replace one or more store-bought, chemical-filled body-care products with something homemade and natural!
- January 30, 2014
Cross posted in Environmental Tip of the Week This is a great resource to get you started: http://www.jewcology.com/content/view/Do-It-Yourself-Body-Care-for-the-New-Year
Uplifting People and Planet
- January 14, 2014
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Exciting news! Just in time for Tu b’Shevat, Canfei Nesharim and Jewcology are proud to announce the launch of a new ebook exploring traditional Jewish teachings on the environment, Uplifting People and Planet: Eighteen Essential Jewish Lessons on the Environment, edited by Rabbi Yonatan Neril and Evonne Marzouk. This ebook is the most comprehensive study in English of how Jewish traditional sources teach us to protect our natural resources and preserve the environment. From food to trees, energy to water, wealth to biodiversity, the book studies eighteen ...
A Tu B’Shvat Seder to Heal the Wounded Earth
- January 7, 2014
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The New Year – for Rebirthing Trees: [This version of the Haggadah for Tu B’Shvat has been greatly adapted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow of The Shalom Center from a Haggadah shaped by Ellen Bernstein, as published in Trees, Earth, and Torah: A Tu B’Shvat Anthology (Jewish Publ. Soc., 1999, ed. by Elon, Hyman, & Waskow). Bernstein wrote introductory remarks to sections of that Haggadah, many of which have been included or adapted for this one. They are indicated in the text by the initials “EB.” * The desire for such a Haggadah grew from ...
Environmental Tip of the Week: Apology and this week’s tip: Dumpster Adventures
- December 11, 2013
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http://environmentaltip.blogspot.com/2013/12/apology-and-this-weeks-tip-dumpster.html I'm not blogging much lately due to certain matters going on in my life. Sorry, I know this is supposed to be a weekly post but life happens.... Anyway, here's this week's tip. This applies if you live in a place where there's a central dumpster where people dump their garbage: When you take out the garbage, keep your eyes open for things that might not really be garbage but perhaps someone was just trying to get rid of the item without it occurring to them that maybe someone else could ...
Honoring the Vera Lieber Memorial Garden
- November 5, 2013
My local Orthodox Jewish day school, the Melvin J. Berman Hebrew Academy, has been on a green roll. It’s especially inspiring because it doesn’t seem like just one person has been pushing it. It’s more like a group of people slowly came to the same conclusion, that there should be more environmental awareness, and they have all be acting on their own to bring green consciousness to the school and the students. For all of these actions, the school was recognized this year with a Bethesda Magazine Green Award. It’s the kind of thing ...
The Urban Adamah Fellowship Now Accepting 2014 Applications
- October 17, 2013
Connect to Something Bigger: Earth, Community, Social Justice, Jewish Spirituality The Urban Adamah Fellowship, based in Berkeley, CA, is a three-month residential training program for young adults (ages 21–31) that combines urban organic farming, social justice training and progressive Jewish learning and living within the setting of an intentional community. Through the operation of Urban Adamah’s one-acre organic farm and internships with social justice organizations, fellows gain significant skills, training and experience in all aspects of ...
The Meaning of This Hour: Confronting the Coming Cataclysm of Global Climate Change
- September 16, 2013
- 1 comment
In March 1938, Abraham Joshua Heschel delivered a speech to a conference of Quakers in Frankfort (it was later expanded and published in 1943) called The Meaning of this Hour. Heschel had been living in Berlin for some years, acquiring his Ph.D. and a liberal rabbinic ordination (he had already gotten a traditional ordination when he was a teenager in Warsaw). During his years there, he was a witness to rise of Nazism even while he taught and began to publish his work. In 1938, it was clear to many people that war in Europe was coming. In the very month that ...
Support the Year of Engagement
- August 27, 2013
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Exciting news! Canfei Nesharim is teaming up with the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL) through our Jewcology project, on a new joint fundraising campaign. Together, we aim to raise a total of $10,000 by the end of Tishrei, October 3. MAKE AN ELUL DONATION TO SUPPORT JEWCOLOGY NOW! With your support, in 2014 Jewcology and COEJL will partner on a "Year of Jewish Policy Engagement on the Environment," which will provide tools to help Jewish environmental activists and local leaders become more involved in environmental action at ...
Making Dance Green
- August 13, 2013
By Stacey Menchel Kussell, director of Renewal: A Film About Art and Ecology Contemporary ballet and environmentalism are not topics that often go hand-in-hand. That is until you meet Israel’s Vertigo Dance Company. The dance group’s unique approach to ecological activism is the inspiration for my new film Renewal. Dance is one of Israel’s most impressive art forms, and it engages people worldwide regardless of language. Renewal is an opportunity for new audiences to learn about a unique and powerful aspect of Israeli culture, and gain new ...
Do Animals Go to Heaven? Reflecting on Our Relationship to Non-Human Life
- July 15, 2013
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Do All Dogs Go to Heaven? When we ask such a question or “Do animals have souls?” what are we are really saying? We are revealing a deeper existential and theological question about how human beings relate to other living creatures. No one can know the actual reality of the afterlife, but what we believe about it says something about what we believe about life. Our ideas about animal “souls” is, therefore, really about whether humans are unique among living creatures and determining the spiritual distance or ontological gap between humans and ...
Jewish Energy Guide – The Rainbow Connection: Rainbow Day and Creation
- May 2, 2013
By Rabbi David Seidenberg “I have set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between Me and the Earth.” (Genesis 9:13) Millennia before Kermit the Frog sang about the Rainbow Connection, the very first Rainbow Day marked the connection between God and all animals. The biblical flood began on the 17th of the second month, exactly one lunar year and 10 days — or one complete solar year — before Noah, his family, and all the animals that were with them left the ark, on the 27th day of the second month. But ...
Why Jewish Environmental Education is Important
- March 15, 2013
See this article on Tikkun Olam and Jewish Environmental Education, published recently in the journal Jewish Educational Leadership, a publication of the Lookstein Center for Jewish Education. Click here or go to http://www.lookstein.org/online_journal.php?id=441
The Natural Bible
- January 27, 2013
For anyone interested in Bible study, nature, the environment or religion, this unique and valuable resource elucidates the connections between Judaism and the natural world. The Natural Bible explores how religious environmental values can help us have a healthier relationship with the earth, and at the same time, how an appreciation of the natural environment enriches our understanding of the biblical text’s use of metaphors from the natural world. Topics include sustainability and stewardship, our relationship with living creatures and God’s creation, and ...
New Year of Jewish Learning on the Environment Materials Released!
- January 23, 2013
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The eighteenth topic in the Year of Jewish Learning on the Environment, The Glory in Creation: Valuing Biodiversity! We live in an amazingly diverse world, with approximately 8.3 million unique species described by scientists, and likely twice that number that have not yet been discovered. Jewish sources teach that G-d has joy in the diversity and continuity of creation, and that G-d sees a purpose in each of these species. This biodiversity is an expression of G-d’s glory, a testament to the extraordinary creativity of our Creator. ...
