Excerpt:
Explore ways to reconnect your eating to your Jewish values by setting aside time to celebrate your food with the traditional Jewish food blessings.
Learn more at http://urj.org/life/food/?syspage=document&item_id=27462.
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Summary: It has been said that the entire Torah exists to establish justice. Thus, through the study of Torah and other Jewish texts, Shavuot offers us an opportunity to re-commit to tikkun olam. Pages 11 - 15 feature Shavuot and the environment.
Learn more at http://rac.org/pubs/holidayguides/shavuot/.
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Summary: Here tonight on this New Year of the Trees, we will think about how we can be partners with God in maintaining the work of Creation. We will notice and appreciate the bounty we have received,and we will give thanks for it. And we will go a step further to think about how to become active partners in the protection and repair of the Earth.
Learn more at http://rac.org/_kd/Items/actions.cfm?action=Show&item_id=2620&destination=ShowItem.
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Summary: This Tu BiSh'vat seder is a call to action. While the Tu BiSh’vat seder is meant to be a celebration of our relationship with nature, it is also a time of education and reflection, a time to look at our impact on the world around us and change the way to interact with our environment during the coming year.
Learn more at http://rac.org/pdf/index.cfm?id=2069&pge_prg_id=10096&pge_id=3010.
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by Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Commonwealth
View a Printable Version | View a Source Sheet
Few texts have had a deeper influence on Western civilization than the first chapter of Genesis, with its momentous vision of the universe coming into being as the work of God. Set against the grandeur of the narrative, what stands out is the smallness yet uniqueness of humans, vulnerable but also undeniably set apart from all other beings. The words of the Psalmist echo the wonder and ...
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The weekly Shabbat Kiddush table is a place of blessing, schmoozing, and simcha (happiness). But it also has the tendency to generate a lot of waste, and unhealthy eating habits. The list below offers a few resources and ideas for making your kiddush table healthy and sustainable. The same ideas can easily be transferred to your next synagogue social event, Hadassah meeting, book club, or canned food drive.
Thanks to Edith Stevenson of Vancouver, BC for her input on this list. Please continue to add your own ideas in the comments section.
Start a kiddush ...
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Pesach is the Jewish tradition’s “eat seasonal” poster child. Also known as “Chag Ha-Matzot” (possibly a holiday celebrating the new barley harvest) and Chag Ha-Aviv (“holiday of spring”), Passover is a time to notice and celebrate the coming of spring. The seder plate abounds with seasonal symbols: the roasted lamb bone celebrates lambs born in spring; karpas symbolizes the first green sprouts peaking out of the thawed ground; and a roasted egg recalls fertility and rebirth.
Pesach offers a perfect opportunity to combine ...
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Hosting a Shabbat meal is a wonderful way to spend quality time with family and friends without the distractions of the everyday (email, ringing cell phones, distracting Blackberry messages…) It also offers an amazing template over which to create new rituals and traditions that add new meaning and sustainable flair to the experience. The Jew & The Carrot offers the following resources to help you Green Your Shabbat Table and discover, “What makes this Shabbat meal different from other Shabbat meals?”
Greening Your Shabbat Table
Set a ...
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The manual provides instructions, guidelines and tips on running your own seder.
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Pushing ourselves to be the best we can be
Nigel Savage
Published in The New Jersey Jewish News' segment, The Next Big Think
March 16, 2006
I love the famous line from Robert F. Kennedy: “There are those who look at things the way they are and ask why? I dream of things that never were and ask why not?”
It’s in that spirit that I want to address this topic. This is more about what might be than about what is. Here are three things that already exist within Jewish life — but which I’d like to see grow dramatically in ...
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Shabbat Hazon 2006
Friday July 28th 2006 / 3 Av 5766
Dear All,
This Shabbat is Shabbat Hazon, which you would think would be the sort of time I ought to write something to our list.
But then one recalls that Shabbat Hazon is not about "hazon" - vision - in a positive and inspirational sense (which is largely why Hazon is called Hazon) but rather about a prophecy of destruction and despoliation, especially in Israel.
And then I think: well, perhaps I should indeed write something...
So in the remainder of this email I want to ...
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Friday, February 3, 2007 / 14 Shevat 5767
Dear All,
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change just issued a report which is front page news in nearly every paper in the world today. The Guardian’s summary is typical:
The report predicts a rise of between 18 cm and 58 cm in sea levels by the end of this century, a figure that could increase by as much as 20cm if the recent melting of polar ice sheets continues.
"Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean ...
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Prayer Marathons Of Rosh Hashanah And Yom Kippur
New strategies for an ancient tradition
No-one would run a marathon without training. But this coming weekend several hundred thousand New Yorkers – and several million of our coreligionists worldwide – will fill synagogues and temples for the annual prayer marathon that is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year. For those who need a little last minute training, therefore: read on…
At the emotional high point of one of the central prayers of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur we say "tesh...
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Nigel Savage, Director of Hazon
In the summer of 1998, I led a group of Jewish teenagers on a two week hiking trip in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. This is the story of how awful it was - the miserable weather, the arguments, the religious problems, the midpoint mutiny - and why, nevertheless, I think we should all get out in the woods a lot more often...
This is the group: nine Jewish teenagers: seven girls and only two boys. Religiously most are observant, but not all: of those who are there is some difference between the strictly halachic and the ...
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Leviticus 26:3-27:34
A few years ago I went hiking with friends and with a Bedouin guide in the area around and behind Santa Katerina, in southern Sinai. Sinai is an extraordinary place, raw and grand. The peaks are majestic and whistling cold. The wadis are full of hidden crevices, shade and light, little crawly things, small shrubs and unlikely greennesses. On a hot day, moving slowly, we rounded a corner and came upon a pool, translucent blue, still in the windless day, ice-cold despite the heat.
As we read parashat Be-Midbar, and begin the book of Be-Midb...
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Treasures In The Garden by Nigel Savage
Reframing Jewish tradition in an era of ecological challenge
Jewish tradition is so old we easily take it for granted. But it's quite an incredible thing: to have been one of the world's indigenous peoples, more than three thousand years ago, to have maintained since then a continuous historical identity and existence, and still to be here, in the postmodern age.
We have gathered, in that time, what I think of as "treasures in the garden" - traditions and teachings of immense beauty and value, which ...
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The Jewish Climate Change Campaign:
This campaign will appear on the world’s stage alongside plans from many of the world’s religions at the request of The Alliance of Religions and Conservation, ARC. ARC is an umbrella non-profit organization based in the UK that seeks to inspire and mobilize the world’s religious communities to create a better world. It was founded on the belief that knowing what to do about the environment is not enough, a profound shift in values and vision to motivate us to act on our knowledge is essential. The values and ...
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Jcarrot is a blog about Jews, Food, and Contemporary Issues
http://blogs.forward.com/the-jew-and-the-carrot/
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