Warning Signs: The Environment and the Three Weeks
The "Three Weeks" leading up to and including Tisha B'Av commemorate the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem. It is a time for mourning and contemplation, and for examining the spiritual roots of destruction and redemption. These lessons have profound relevance for our relationship with our planet and the natural resources Hashem provides us. We hope you will take ...
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Our Relationship to the Land: The Meaning of the Omer
A series of lessons to introduce the agricultural and environmental meaning of the Omer to Jewish students.
Introductory Materials: big ideas, learning objectives and additional resources
Teacher's Guide
Lesson One: Everything Comes from the Land (upper elementary school and middle school students)
Teacher Guide
Student's Course Book
Lesson One Alternate: Everything Comes from the Land (older middle school and high school students)
Teacher Guide
Student's Course Book
Lesson ...
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By Yonatan Neril
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Our actions are deeply connected to the environment that we see around us. Our current period of “counting the Omer” offers an opportunity for strengthening and refining our character. As we will explore, this process also contains within it meaningful ways to address, from a spiritual place, some of the pressing issues of our time.
Rabbi Sampson Rafael Hirsch teaches, “Nature does not stand between you and Me, but you stand between Nature and Me. It is according to ...
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Counting the Omer, Refining Ourselves: “Counting the Omer” offers an opportunity for strengthening and refining our character. As we will explore, this process also contains within it meaningful ways to address, from a spiritual place, some of the pressing issues of our time
Counting the Omer: A Tool for Nature Consciousness: In addition to our historical understanding of Pesach as our Exodus from Egypt, the holiday also signified the start of the grain harvest. Thus, scripture portrays the Omer season as a time for awaiting the wheat harvest.
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Sefirat HaOmer and the Connection to the Land: A Program for School-Aged Children
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Introduction:
The time between Pesach and Shavuot, when we count the Omer, is a time not only for spiritual reflection and refinement of our middot, but an opportunity to connect to the land of Israel and our responsibility for the earth.
Most of us are familiar with the spiritual implications of the holidays of Pesach as the time of our freedom and leaving Egypt, and Shavuot, the time of receiving the Torah. The ...
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Omer and Shavuot Text Learning and Discussion Guide
This text study and discussion guide accompanies Goats, Grapes and Greenbelts: Sustainability and Settling the Land. Great for Tikkun Leyl Shavuot!
This content originated at Canfei Nesharim.org.
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By Yonatan Neril
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The period of the Omer and the festival of Shavuot present opportune times to explore our connection and relationship to the land. On the first day of the Omer period, Cohanim (priests) made a barley offering in the Temple in Jerusalem. [1] On the fiftieh day, Shavuot, the Cohanim would prepare and offer two loaves of wheat bread from the new wheat harvest, as well as animal sacrifices. The grain offerings of the Omer (barley) and Two Loaves (wheat) had to come from the choicest grain of the land of Israel,[2] ...
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Let's celebrate Hannukah 5771 by:
1) cleaning up the world!
2) sharing Jewish environmental teachings!
3) ...and lighting the Hannuka candles!
Each year, Sviva Israel runs a Hannukah Eco Lights Facebook campaign, inviting Jews around the world to pick up an additional piece of trash each of the eight days of candlelighting.
This small slice of Tikkun Olam, is accompanied by daily Hannukah teachings by contributors from all walks of Jewish life. Eco Lights have been written in Hebrew, English, Amharic, Russian, French, Flemish and even Chinese. ...
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Goals:
To understand the interconnectedness of Israel and Palestinian Stakeholders in environmental solutions building in the middle east
To understand the casues and effects of water pollution in the middle east and explore collaborate solutions to the regions water problems.
Procedure:
1) Introduce the concepts of water scarcity and pollution in Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
2) Divide the participants into 5 groups and assign each group a stakeholder (from below)
3) Distribute basic stakeholder information & a map to every group ...
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Here are some cards that can be printed and hing along a path for people to thing about as they walk through a bauetiful natural setting.
This set is an Zionist expansion to the larger Tiyul Breshit program
Materials developed by Noam Dolgin, www.noamdolgin.com.
All content is subject to the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. (Ie. Tell other where you got it from and don't sell it)
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Israel's Major Environmental Challenges Include:
AIR POLLUTION: Israel's major cities, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa, as well as industrial centers like Ashdod, face severe air pollution problems, primarily from industrial and automobile emissions. In 2003, the Israel Union for Environmental Defense (IUED) published the results of a study it conducted with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that indicated that 1,400 Israelis die each year from exposure to air pollution in Tel Aviv and Ashdod alone. This is over twice the number of Israelis who die ...
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Zionism and the Land of Israel
Two views on preservation, development and the value of nature
The next two pages contain an assortment of passages of Zionist and Israeli thinkers reflecting on the role of Zionism in developing the Land of Israel. Read the passages and consider the following questions:
From an environmental perspective, has Zionism harmed or helped the land of Israel?
Is opposition to development anti-Zionist?
What is “Green/Eco Zionism” and is such a thing possible? Important?
Materials developed by ...
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Zionist Eco-Dilemmas
by Noam Dolgin and Becca Weaver
Audience:
Ages 12 and up
Preparation:
It is helpful to put each dilemma on a card.
Procudure:
1) Break the participants into groups of 3-5 and hand each group a card. They should:
a) Read and discuss the dilemma.
b) Figure out what ecological and Jewish issues are involved.
c) Come up with a solution, or choose an answer to the dilemma. (the group does not have to agree)
4) Depensing on time, rotate cards so that each groups gets to discuss a number of the ...
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An activity that explores the connections between land, time and responsibility, and looks at the Jewish historical and religious connection to Zion and the lands we live on today.
Age: 12 and up
Time: 30 minutes and up depending on how much of this highly flexible program you choose to lead.
Materials:
2 pictures of Hall Peninsula (Aerial photograph, and Inuit’s recounting - attached)
Reading, The Unnatural Jew by Steven Schwartzchild
Blank Paper, Pencils or Markers
Procedure:
1) Define term: ‘Eco’
a. ...
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Canfei Nesharim is proud to present Eitz Chayim Hee: A Torah Commentary for Environmental Learning and Action. This content originated at Canfei Nesharim.org.
Bereishis:The Stewardship Paradigm in the Torah Portion of Bereishis
Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks
Source Sheet
Noach: A Paradigm for Environmental Consciousness
Shimshon Stüart Siegel
Source Sheet
Lech Lecha: Joining Together for Justice in the ...
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