From this Shabbat onwards, we will be just over 4 months away from welcoming the Shmita year, which begins on Rosh Hashana (Sept 24, 2014). Have you thought about how you might welcome the Shmita year into your own community?

In honor of Shabbat Behar and the Sefirat Ha’Omer, anytime between now and Shavuot would be a wonderful time to bring Shmita education and experiential offerings to your local synagogue, school, community center, community garden, etc. You are invited to join communities across the country as we collectively create a mosaic of action of learning, bringing to life the core values of the Shmita tradition.

Please learn more about the national Behar campaign, check out events that have been scheduled around the country, and register your own event.

It would be wonderful to have your participation!

If you would like to host an event, we’d be happy to offer support, as well as help spread the word about your event.

• Here are some educational resources and tools you might use to bring Shmita learning to your own community.
• Here are some program and activity ideas you might use to bring Shmita awareness and action into your community during this period of time.
• Also, this year’s Shabbat Behar also happens to fall on World Fair Trade Day, and Fair Trade Judaica is linking Behar with the important efforts of bringing fair trade education, awareness, and products into our communities. Learn about Fair Trade & Shabbat Behar, and see how this all connects with Shmita.

Be in touch with shmitaproject@hazon.org with any questions or requests for support

In partnership with Hazon & the Green Hevra, you are invited to join Jewish communities all over the country in a decentralized, local, grassroots movement to celebrate the visionary teachings of the Sabbatical Year and bring its core values to life. The parsha (weekly Torah reading) of Behar, which literally means ‘On The Mountain,’ and is coming up next Shabbat, May 3-4, introduces ‘Shmita’, a biblical period of debt release, agricultural rest, and societal sharing. What might the Shmita year look like in our modern era? How might the values of the Shmita Cycle hold the key to approaching the economic, environmental, and societal challenges we are facing today? How will you celebrate this moment in time?

For more info, see our Behar page by clicking here.

And for study resources, essays, and curriculum for Shmita, see our library by clicking here.

You can also learn more about Shmita on Jewcology at http://www.jewcology.com/resource/Let-the-Land-Rest-Lessons-from-Shemita-the-Sabbatical-Year-Summary-Article

• The first call to action is in your kitchen. Make a commitment to spend an additional $10 per week on food the source of which you can trace and trust. It may be $10 at the farmers’ market where you’ve just had a discussion with the grower; it may be $10 toward a buying club or a CSA. This $10 is not just for you and your satiation. It is a transformative $10 spent with intention, or kavannah, toward a fair food system.
• The second call takes place in YOUR Jewish community, whether it be a synagogue, havura, Hebrew school or even where you volunteer. Make a commitment to engage the leadership of that institution (maybe it’s you!) to view food as a critical issue in the development of your community (because it is). Find one way you can make a change in the way things are done. This may mean exclusively seeking out caterers who source locally for your celebrations, partnering with a farm to provide produce for school lunches, setting up a Sunday Farmers’ Market, or laying out an expanded set of kosher guidelines for the types of foods you will serve at your institution’s events.
• The third call takes place at the policy level. With discussions around the 2012 Farm Bill beginning soon, it is important to let your elected representatives know that as their constituent, you want THEM to engage with food policy issues. Start by familiarizing yourself with the issues that will be up for discussion. It is too early to make hyper-specific political demands, but it isn’t too early to tell your representatives that you want them to be involved.

Contact your Senators and Representatives and ask the following:

“My name is ____ and I want Senator/Representative _____ to know that as a voting constituent, it is important to me that he/she is engaged with issues of access to healthy food and the 2012 Farm Bill. I want him/her to hear my concerns that the Farm Bill safety netinclude small and mid-size family farmers and that it pay attention to reestablishing a regional food systems infrastructure.”

People's responses varied, but it was clear that the issue was important to nearly everyone in the room. Since 2006, the world of kosher sustainable meat has seen the Agriprocessors scandal, the rise of several kosher sustainable meat businesses and hands-on kosher slaugher educational events across the country, and Hazon has worked steadily to support and advance conversations around these issues.

Now five years later, we're again seeking to take the pulse of the conversation. Do you eat meat? Kosher meat? How do your meat eating habits differ from how you ate five years ago? We invite you to let us know your thoughts through our Sustainable Kosher Meat Survey. Your responses will guide our programming at the Hazon Food Conference (August 18-21) and beyond.

Take The Survey

Hazon’s 2nd Annual California Bike Ride celebrates participant’s decision to give up their personal vehicles.

"The Hazon Ride was an inspirational, eye-opening experience that revealed many of the heart-warming aspects of Judaism that get lost amidst the whirlwind that we know as modern life." – Bill Robbins, Los Angeles

Hazon has received an anonymous gift that will allow us to offer both a registration rebate and fundraising match for new Hazon riders. This generous scholarship will allow people who are new to Hazon to experience the inspiring Hazon community during the 2nd Annual Hazon California Jewish Environmental Ride. The scholarship is targeted to new Riders who fit into five categories:

• Teen Riders ages 12-18
• Young Adults Riders ages 19-29
• Jewish Communal Professionals who Ride
• Riders who do not own cars
• Riders who are willing to sign a pledge committing them to give up their cars within the next year

Qualifying California Ride participants will receive a rebate on registration and a matching gift towards their fundraising minimum. Teen Riders will receive a $100 rebate on the registration cost and adult riders will receive a $250 rebate after the conclusion of the California Ride. All
scholarship recipients will receive a $200 match in their fundraising efforts.

The Hazon California Jewish Environmental Bike Ride is an amazing opportunity to ride with Hazon. Come and enjoy the outdoors as you challenge yourself and spend time exploring the environmental issues and their relationship to Judaism. The ride is a transformative experience that will expand your community and your mind.

Learn more about the 2011 Hazon California Bike Ride

Download the 2011 edition of our comprehensive, pluralistic, beautiful haggadah and source book for FREE. Complete with teachings and explanations, our haggadah is available in PDF format so you may print as few or as many copies as you need. Right-click and choose “save as” if you are having trouble… Read More

The new Jewish Food Movement: (draft) 7-year goals

Over the past few years, a growing number of Jewish foodies, farmers, rabbis, chefs, teachers, students, families and many others have brought meaning to the words new Jewish Food Movement, asking why and how one can eat in a way that is both deeply Jewish and deeply sustainable.

It is time to ask a new question: where will this movement be in 7 years? Last Rosh Hashanah ended the last shmita (sabbatical year) cycle, and we’ve begun the countdown to the end of the next shmita cycle in September 2015. Using the shmita cycle, with its wisdom about our relationship to the land as a guide, what should be the goals of the Jewish food movement? How do you envision that the Jewish community (in the United States, Israel, and the entire world) will look and act differently in its relationship to food by September, 2015?

A set of draft 7-year goals were unveiled at the 2008 Hazon Food Conference in December. These goals are a taste of what is possible, and many of you who were at the Conference took the time to add your personal vision to these goals. We now want to bring the opportunity to explore and expand these goals to a broader community.

Strong relationships with farms and farmers and a powerful Tuv Ha’Aretz Jewish CSA network. At least 180 CSAs in American Jewish communities around the country and other countries. At least 180 local organic farms being actively supported by Jewish communities; at least 10,000 families putting their purchasing power, as Jews, behind local sustainable agriculture. Most of all, at least 25,000 Jewish people having a direct relationship with a farmer, and to see her or him as growing food directly on their behalf;

“Jewish food education” recognized as an important discrete discipline within the Jewish community. A growing number of Jewish food educators working with schools, synagogues, JCCs and camps to integrate teachings about food in relation to health, ethics, tradition and culture;
More Jewish farmers and more sharing of Jewish farming wisdom. Adamah & Kayam & Jewish Farm School and other equivalent programs: at least 180 Jewish 20-somethings a year graduating from programs that give hands-on knowledge about food, farming and Jewish tradition – and moving on to become leaders and role models within American Jewish life;Meat.

American Jews will eat less meat and fewer animal products generally. The meat they do eat will be from animals that have lived animal-like lives, that have eaten foods those animals traditionally eat, that have been raised in ways respectful to animals and to the land, and that have been killed in ways that are consonant with the highest standards of shechitah and Jewish ethics; Heksher Tzedek and other mechanisms to identify ethically/sustainably raised meat will be fully established and national chains such as Whole Foods and Trader Joes will offer meat with the Heksher Tzedek.

Food security and hunger. Programs such as Challah for Hunger, Table to Table, Hazon Yeshayah, Mazon and AJWS will have grown strongly, so that American Jews are raising and donating more dollars to help people directly in need; Hazon sponsors FAST DAYS as education for food justice days.

Food advocacy; as a community, we’ll play a growing role not only in tzedakah – directly helping those in need – but also in changing public policy, so that we create food systems that are healthy and sustainable for America’s food workers, for all of America’s people and all of the world’s people; As a community we will build power for change, so that we can be allies to the communities most affected by worker injustice in farming, food production, and food service: low wage farm workers, processing/packing house workers, truckers, hospitality/restaurant/hotel workers, etc. In doing so, we will work as a Jewish community to support their efforts for living wage, benefits, health/safety/training measures, as well as related policy concerns, such as immigrant rights/immigration reform, and full access to education, social services, and participation in civic life.
Re-learning the old rhythms of simplicity and feasting. If we’re successful, we hope that in 2015 American Jews will be a role model to other communities in celebrating Shabbat and holidays – Jewish and secular, national and personal – with great joy, and gatherings, and song, and wonderful feasts; and that during the other six days of the week we’ll eat more lightly and more simply. Our motto will be that of our teacher, Reb Michael Pollan: “eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants…”

The Jewish food movement will have a voice/representative/ track in all major Jewish leaders’ conferences – RA, RRA, UAHS, CAJE, Aleph, Kallah, Biennial, etc.
Celebration and inclusion. We’ll do this work with joy, with good humor, and with delight that people are different and legitimately make different choices in their lives. The Jewish food movement is about ethics and justice and environmental sustainability. And it’s also about family, memory, kashrut, culture, cooking, baking, davenning, food-writing, food-photography, Israel, education, holidays, halacha… and the ancient rivalry of latkes and hamentaschen;

The Hazon Food Conference will be a gathering of more than 2,000 people – one of the largest events in the annual calendar of the American Jewish community, a significant and powerful event in its own right, and a place that enables leaders within the Jewish food movement to inspire themselves and each other and to build relationships that will sustain this work throughout the year. The Food Conference will be an inclusive event accessible to students and those with limited means.

Prepare for the next shmita year. Physically and spiritually our communities and our farmlands will be prepared to implement the laws of shmita by the time of Rosh Hashanah/Sept 2015.

What is a Tu Bishvat Seder?
In the Middle Ages, Tu Bishvat was celebrated with a feast of fruits, in keeping with the Mishnaic description of the holiday as a "New Year." In the 1600s, the mystic kabbalist Rabbi Isaac Luria, of Sfat, and his disciples instituted a Tu Bishvat seder in which the fruits and trees of Israel were given symbolic meaning. The main idea was that eating ten specific fruits and drinking four cups of wine in a specific order while reciting the appropriate blessings would bring human beings, and the world, closer to spiritual perfection. The mystical kabbalistic Tu Bishvat seder has been revived, and is now celebrated by many Jews, religious and secular. Special haggadot have been written for this purpose. Hazon has put together a haggadah which is in the appendix of this manual (you can also download it from www.hazon.org).

The structure of a Tu B’Shevat Seder often corresponds to the four “worlds”–levels, realms, or spheres through which, the Kabbalists teach, the life-giving flow of the Divine is channeled and filtered. Very simply, kabbalah uses a metric which explains life through 4 worlds – the world of the physical emotional, mental and spiritual. The Tu Bishvat seder is often viewed through this lens of four worlds. All fruits are divided into categories representing the first three worlds (Asiyah-physical, Yetzirah-emotional, Briya-mental). The fourth world, Atzilut-spiritual, has no representative fruits because it is pure spirit and cannot be represented physically. Much of the seder is divided up to its corresponding kabbalistic world, often including the four cups of wine,
types of wine, and blessings.

• Bicycle Advocacy Groups
• Blogs and Online Resources
• Learn how to Ride a bike
• New York Area Group Rides
• NY Cycle Clubs
• Bike Trails and Route Mapping

Here's an excerpt of what you can expect:

Advocacy Alert Listserv

Click here to sign up for Hazon's Advocacy Listserv

We will email this listserv when we hear of advocacy campaigns around the city that require action from volunteers. Examples include launch events of new initiatives and appearing at city council and community board meetings. You can also take a look at advocacy campaigns run by other NY Area groups.

Visit our website to find out how you can participate in one of our annual rides. We ride in New York, California, and Israel.

Check it out here!

May 12-15, 2011
Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center
Falls Village, Connecticut

The first annual Siach conference will launch a global network of experienced Jewish environment and social justice professionals, as well as highly dedicated lay leaders, from Israel, North America, and Europe to connect and collaborate upon a shared passion and commitment to Tzedek and Tikkun Olam.

Approximately 120 participants, roughly 40% from Israel, 40% from North America, and 20% from Europe, will attend the first conference.

Follow this link for more information and to apply. Applications are due Dec 5.

Here is a vast array of resources from the Jewish Climate Change Campaign site. They will help you teach, advocate, and use your assets to work on climate change in your own best way. Click on each link below.

Theology, Tradition and Wisdom

What We Have: Jewish Theology, Tradition and Wisdom
Where We Are: What is Going on in The Jewish Community Now
Vision for the Next Generation: Theology, Tradition and Wisdom
Theology, Tradition and Wisdom Goals for Generational Change: September 2015

Education

What We Have: Jewish Environmental Education
Where We Are in Education: What is Going on in The Jewish Community Now
Vision for the Next Generation: Jewish Environmental Education
Jewish Environmental Education Goals for Generational Change: September 2015

Lifestyles

What We Have: Jewish Lifestyles
Where We Are with Lifestyle: What is Going on in The Jewish Community Now
Vision for the Next Generation: Jewish Environmental Lifestyles
Jewish Lifestyle Goals for Generational Change: September 2015

Celebration

What We Have: Jewish Celebration
Where We Are with Lifestyle: What is Going on in The Jewish Community Now
Vision for the Next Generation: Jewish Celebration
Jewish Celebration Goals for Generational Change: September 2015

Assets and Greening of Institutions

What We Have: Jewish Assets
Where We Are with Lifestyle: What is Going on in The Jewish Community Now
Vision for the Next Generation: Jewish Assets
Jewish Assets – Goals for Generational Change: September 2015

Policy and Advocacy

What We Have: Jewish Policy and Advocacy
Where We Are with Lifestyle: What is Going on in The Jewish Community Now
Vision for the Next Generation: Jewish Environmental Policy and Advocacy
Jewish Policy and Advocacy Goals for Generational Change: September 2015

Partnership

What We Have: Jewish Environmental Partnerships
Where We Are with Lifestyle: What is Going on in The Jewish Community Now
Vision for the Next Generation: Jewish Partnerships
Jewish Partnerships Goals for Generational Change: September 2015

To present large scale vision, small scale recommendations for action, and a framework for connecting the two, we use a 3×3 grid: This framework reflects a Jewish sensibility. According to the Talmud, “Great is study, because study leads to action.” (Kiddushin, 40b). Action is grounded in, and inspired by education.

In the context of sustainability and climate change, action must have two arms; first, small scale changes in behavior and policy within our homes, communities and institutions; second, advocacy; speaking out publicly to persuade our leaders to take the large-scale steps that will be necessary to make our societies more sustainable

We invite communities to take upon themselves a commitment to work in all 9 boxes – starting with a topic that interests them. This is an iterative process. As a community, we can make progress in all nine boxes if everyone follows their passion. We have to promise ourselves that we will take action.

Click here to see our ideas for action and to add your own!

YES: I believe that the Jewish People can and should play a distinct role in responding to climate change and fostering sustainability between now and September 2015 (the end of the next 7-year sabbatical cycle in the Jewish calendar);

YES: I call on all Jewish organizations, small and large, to create Green Teams that will draw up seven-year goals to effect change and specific steps to get started this year;

YES: I believe we must integrate education, action and advocacy. So I commit every month to learn more about the environment and about Jewish teachings on sustainability; to act by making more sustainable choices; and to advocate for generational change by speaking up to friends, family members, colleagues and opinion-leaders;

YES: I'll write to my elected representatives "I call on you and our government to build a more sustainable global economy; to support the creation of green jobs; to prioritize protecting vulnerable populations; and to ensure that the UN Climate Change Conference creates the strongest possible framework to ameliorate climate change."

YES: I hope 600,000Jewish people join me in signing this pledge. Please add my name to the list.

To see more about the Jewish Climate Change Campaign, please visit http://jewishclimatecampaign.org/.

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 committee at your synagogue. Get together a group of people who like to cook and give your usual caterer a break. Try offering a “homemade Kiddush” once/month where everything is cooked (not just taken out of boxes) by the volunteers and is mostly locally-sourced and organic.

Use smart plates. If your synagogue does not have the resources to use reusable dishware on Shabbat, use post-consumer waste paper or plant-based ones. More info on this here. http://www.ecoproducts.com/ And use linen table cloths instead of paper or plastic ones.

Go free range – Egg salad is a staple of the Kiddush table. Try making egg salad from cage-free eggs.

Veggie cholent – Serve vegetarian cholent at your Kiddush. Try featuring a new grain like brown rice, barley, or millet.

Feature seasonal fruits. Fresh fruit platters are commonly found at Kiddush tables, and are both beautiful and healthy. But if you live outside of California, it can be next to impossible to source these fruits locally during the winter months. Focus on fresh fruits when they’re in season – strawberries in June, melons in August, apples in October, root veggies in December. Try serving dried fruit or frozen fruit in winter. Read Anna Stevenson’s post on Jcarrot for more info.

Skip the crème puffs. There’s nothing wrong with a little something sweet, and cookie platters are a great Kiddush table nibble. Try buying (or making) cookies made with organic ingredients and fair trade chocolate. Brands to try: Newman’s Organic Kosher Cookies – chocolate chip, mint crèmes, orange chocolate chip, Alphabet cookies….

Can the soda. Avoid sugary sodas and fruit punches – instead, serve seltzers, 100% real fruit juices (and scotch, of course!). A grape juice to try: If you live in the Northeaset, try serving the kosher grape juice from Glendale Farms – 607-546-8479.

Keep it Fair. Congregations across the country are switching to Fair Trade coffee, tea, and chocolate! Equal Exchange offers an interfaith program where they specifically work to bring fair trade products to faith congregations.

Family style. Try serving Kiddush family style – with the food on small platters on tables, rather than vast quantities at a long buffet. This allows people to see what’s available and encourages them to take healthy portions.

Hummus! Hummus is relatively simple to make fresh in large batches, and tastes amazing. Here’s a great and easy hummus recipe from Epicurious.com

The salatim. Try serving pickles, dilly beans, or other value-added products from local farms. Invite the farmers to speak to the congregation about their farm during Shabbat lunch.

Educate. The most important thing you can do at a healthy, sustainable Kiddush is educate the people in your community. Make an announcement before Kiddush, and have table tents and resource sheets available explaining the important changes on the table. If a member of the community helped sponsor your healthy, sustainable Kiddush, don’t forget to raise a glass to them. L’chaim!

Leftovers. “If you run out of food, or there is none left by the end of Kiddush, then the amounts were perfect,” Edith Stevenson comments. “The idea that we must have LOTS of food at a Kiddush is a Jewish tradition that I think is just plain wrong!” If you do have leftovers, consider donating them to a local Food Bank or other food recovery organization.

Pesach offers a perfect opportunity to combine the wisdom of a traditional Jewish holiday with our contemporary desire to live healthily and sustainable in our world. For example, some families put an orange or olive on their seder plate to recognize women’s rights and solidarity with Middle East peace. In the same spirit, The Jew & The Carrot offers this list Healthy & Sustainable Passover Resources to help you celebrate the holiday in sustainable style. And we’d also love to hear your ideas at tips at jcarrot dot org.

BEFORE PASSOVER

Get rid of your Chametz – sustainably. You don’t have to douse your house in poisonous chemicals—noxious to both you and the people who work in the factories that produce them—to get rid of your chametz (bread products and crumbs which are literally, and ritually, cleared before Pesach). Try using natural, non-toxic cleaning products, and scrub away. Eco-cleaning products we like: Seventh Generation and Ecover.

What Would Moses Do? – Moses brought the enslaved Jews out of Mitzrayim towards freedom. Sadly, a different form of slavery exists today, both in Israel and the rest of the world. According to estimates by NGOs, a few hundred to a few thousand people have been illegally trafficked into Israel for sexual exploitation or labor. Approximately 70% of these sex workers are women. Learn more about this issue, and how you can help, here.

SUSTAINABLE SEDER PLATE

Every Charoset tells a story. – Charoset’s mixture of apples and nuts is already healthy and delicious and, when made with local apples, sustainable. Charoset also offers you the chance to explore other cultures within the Jewish Diaspora. Google the word “Charoset” to find recipes from Russia, Spain, Holland, Yemen, Turkey, Surinam… – or ask your guests to bring their own favorite charoset recipe and have a taste-test.

Fairly Trade Pecans. – Equal Exchange recently launched a new line of fairly-traded pecans grown by an agricultural co-operative in Southwest Georgia<. What better way to infuse your charoseth with the taste of justice? They also make a great pre-dinner nibble for hungry seder guests. Buy Equal Exchange brand Fair Trade pecans here.

Sprout your own Karpas. – If you can’t find locally grown greens to dip for karpas, sprout your own! Although many sprouts come from corn, soybeans, and other chametz or kitnyot, in just 2-3 days, you can have fresh, delicious quinoa sprouts that you “grew” yourself!

Horseradish doesn’t grow in a bottle. Buy and grate fresh horseradish root for your seder plate. When it comes time for the Hillel sandwich, hold up an ungrated root so your guests know where that bitter stuff comes from. Make sure to have some of the beet-dyed, jarred horseradish on hand, just in case your Aunt Bess looks forward to it every year.

Free-range betza (egg). – Buy organic, free-range eggs, and be willing to pay slightly more for them. They taste better, didn’t cause suffering to the animals who laid them, and support farmers who are making it possible for you to eat good food.

Roast a beet. – If you’re going vegetarian for your seder (see below), substitute a roasted beet for the roasted lamb shank. Or follow The Jew & The Carrot reader, Sarah Fenner’s suggestion: “In place of the shankbone in my home, we have often roasted a “pascal yam” instead!”

THE SEDER TABLE: FOOD & DECORATION

Enjoy your flowers on Pesach—and all spring. Fresh bouquets make beautiful centerpieces, but only last a few days, and are often grown with pesticides. Try a sustainable alternative like potted tulips. Potted herbs also make a beautiful, inexpensive centerpiece, and make your table smell great! You can buy potted thyme, rosemary, and lavender etc., at garden nursery or farmer’s market. At the end of the seder, give your centerpieces as gifts to your guests. If you definitely want cut-flower centerpieces, go organic!

Bring on the hors d’oeuvres – After you bless and eat the karpas, vegetables and dip, fruits, and cheese are all permitted. Save your table from starvation and distraction with a few snacks – everyone will have a better time.

Serve local / ethically-sourced meat.- Meat dishes like chicken soup with matzah balls and brisket are traditional favorites for Pesach. Try buying your meat from the person who raised it (or as close to that as possible. Where to shop: farmers’ markets, meat order co-ops, local butcher shops (ask themwhere the meat comes from). If you’re looking for kosher organic meat, try ordering from Wise Kosher, which is double certified organic and kosher.

Host a vegetarian or vegan seder. Even if you regularly eat meat, Pesach is a great time to eat lower on the food chain. Think of it as getting rid of your “gastronomical chametz.” Menu ideas: almond quinoa salad (quinoa is Kosher for Pesach!), matza lasagna, vegetarian matzah ball soup, roasted new potatoes with rosemary, Israeli salad, borscht, garlic sautéed fiddleheads…Find the recipes here.

Host a potluck seder. – Or at least accept offers of help with the preparation. A sustainable seder also means not wearing out the host!

Buy vegetables at your farmer’s market – Go a few weeks early and chat with the sellers to see what they’ll have available the first week of April. In many parts of the country, green options will be slim, but you may find salad greens, cabbage, fiddleheads, spinach, as well as root vegetables in cold storage (carrots, potatoes, onions, squash, beets) and apples and pears. Consider making at least one dish all local, and feature it at your seder.

Serve local, organic wine – Find out ahead of time what your local wine store has in stock—especially if you plan to buy a lot of bottles. If they don’t have anything, ask them to order a case on your behalf. There aren’t many kosher organic wines available, but one or two are Kosher for Pesach. (See our list of kosher organic wine). Consider paying a little more at a locally-owned store—sustainable means supporting local businesses, too.

Use recycled or plant-based disposables. – Pesach is a time when many families break out the fine china and heirloom silverware. But if you’re using disposable plates this year, use post-consumer waste paper or plant-based ones. More info on this here and here.

Greening Your Shabbat Table

Set a kavannah (intention) to “go local.”
Whether you decide to make all your dishes from scratch, or purchase some things ready-made, make a pledge to feature ingredients and dishes that are locally grown. Remember that the definition of “local” is loosely defined – so decide in advance where you want to draw the boundary. Even if you don’t manage to eat all local, all the time in your day-to-day life (and really, who does?), Shabbat is the perfect time to strive for that ideal. See just how local you can go!

*Teaching moment: Think about your guest list and what interests your invitees share. If several your guests are vegetarians, or committed meat eaters, consider brining this topic into the meal as well. If there are people who are involved in social justice causes, or grow their own herbs, consider what kind of menu and discussion questions would draw them in most.

Involve your friends.
Don’t take on the local kavannah alone – get your friends involved! Invite them into the conversation about where ingredients for your shared meal will come from. If no farmer’s market is readily available at which you/your guests can buy local produce, what other criteria can you use for buying locally or sustainably? Perhaps everyone will pledge to use no plastic bags in their shopping (including those little bags for vegetables and fruit!) or to bike to their supermarkets instead of hopping in a cab with an armload of groceries.

Utilize peoples’ skills. Maybe someone is a great baker—ask him to make challah. Someone else might have a knack for roasting her own peppers or making fruit preserves—find a way to use that as well!

*Teaching moment: If you do decide to ask your friends to bring dishes to the meal, consider giving them questions to think about while they are shopping or preparing their food. For example, if someone is bringing fruit, try giving them the task of asking the fruit vendor about the origins of the produce, or what makes organic food different from pesticide-free food. Ask them to share what they learned at the meal.

Drink locally. If you are comfortable drinking non-kosher wine, try to find a bottle (or box!) of wine grown and produced close to home. If you prefer kosher, check out a wine on The Jew & The Carrot’s kosher organic wine list.

Check in with the season. If you are hosting in the winter, think about making a winter vegetable theme, e.g. winter squash, or using lots of peaches, nectarines, and cherries if you are hosting a summer meal. And realize that as the seasons change, the ingredients will as well so that allows you to have original menus numerous times a year!

Bless your meal. Other than the traditional brachot (blessings) birkat hamazon (grace after meals), invite your guests to discuss whom they want to thank before, during, and following this unique meal and encourage them to create their own blessings or songs if they so choose.

Eat together.
With intention.
In silence. (Try spending the first 10 minutes of your meal just enjoying the food and company without speaking. It might feel a little strange at first, but see if you can relax into the idea. And of course you can share your experiences afterwards!)

Learn together.
Rabbi Shimon said: If three have eaten together at one table and have not spoken over it words of Torah, it is as though they had eaten of the sacrifices of the dead (Isaiah 28:8)…but if three have eaten at one table and have spoken over it words of Torah, it is as if they had eaten from the table of God (Ezekiel 41:22).

In other words, learning together over food is a good thing! Identify a learning coordinator for your meal who will come up with questions to lead the discussion around the table, and identify short texts that can be learned together. Discussion questions can include: “What does sustainable mean to you?” “How is your relationship to this meal different from other meals knowing how it was prepared and where the ingredients were purchased?” “What is the connection between Shabbat and having a sustainable meal?”

Texts are another great way to create an order and guide your meal. Try to focus on Jewish texts (Hazon’s book “Food for Thought” curriculum book is an incredible resource for relevant texts), but feel free to bring in non-Jewish texts as well that might speak to your dinner’s theme, i.e. highlights from Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma or Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

Clean up green. After your sustainable meal, clean up with green cleaning supplies like Seventh Generation or Ecover. Invite your friends to help you wash dishes and put leftover food away. Whether or not you made all the food yourself, or invited friends to help, clean up should be a communal effort (which is more sustainable for you)!

Be Creative.
Don’t feel limited by these ideas! This is just a starting point for making sustainable Shabbat “seders” a tradition that any community, group, or city can take part in and make their own!

Thanks to Nadya Strizhevskaya for pulling together this resource page.

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 the next five years.

Creating inclusive community

What common thread runs through B’nai Jeshurun, the popular independent synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, the annual learning retreat known as Limmud New York, and Hazon’s New York Jewish Environmental Bike Ride? Each goes a long way in seeking to create inclusive community. Each eschews the implication of questions like, Which person is the oldest or the youngest? The least religious or the most observant? Whose Hebrew isn’t so good? Who’s not Jewish, or not white, or not heterosexual?

“Inclusive community” is a contemporary phrase that encompasses the biblical “love the stranger, because you were strangers in Egypt.” The single most common phrase in the Torah, “love the stranger” has been a leitmotif throughout Jewish history. If you were to decide to conduct a decisive campaign over the next two years to make your school or synagogue or JCC a fully welcoming place in ways major and minor, to include anyone who might in any way feel left out — within five years your community would be transformed.

Push yourself a little The rhetoric of contemporary life is “go with the flow” — or as the pre-Kabala Madonna put it, “express yourself.” Jewish tradition dissents somewhat from this idea, inviting us to hold ourselves to high standards. At Hazon, for example, we encourage people to push themselves on multi-day fund-raising bicycle rides in New York and Israel. It’s both a physical and fiscal challenge: Last year’s riders, to their own astonishment, generated more than 3,000 individual donations for Hazon and its partners, including the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, the American Jewish World Service, and the Hudson Valley Sustainable Communities Network. We live in a Jewish metropolis that offers more opportunities to learn and grow than almost any in human history — but most of us don’t avail ourselves of them. Sign up for something new at your JCC. Learn with your rabbi. Take a class at the synagogue. Or join or form one of the New Jersey teams for our Israel and New York bike rides. (The Israel ride takes place May 9-16; the New York ride Sept. 1-4. Visit the Hazon web site for more information.)

Noninstrumental Judaism

Too much of organized Jewish life is about persuading someone else to be Jewish in a particular way. “You should be Orthodox. You should be a Reform Jew. You should be a Zionist.” Noninstrumental Judaism essentially says, “I think this is amazing (or rich or enjoyable or worthwhile), and I invite you to join with me in doing this.” That’s actually very different from “You should….” Telling someone else to be Orthodox or Zionist or anything else involves a considerable degree of presumption — that you know better than the person you’re talking to about how he or she should live.

If we focus less on persuading others to be “our kind” of Jew and more on pushing ourselves to be the best kind of Jew each of us can be, then we will transform ourselves and our families — and we may also find that we transform our communities and the world around us.

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 write about what's been happening in Israel these last few weeks, and about how I respond to it. And about how, if at all, that connects both to Hazon as an organization and to Shabbat Hazon this weekend.

(I will say in advance – this will be 3,000 words by the time I've finished. And you need to read it to the end to follow an argument that leads occasionally in rather different directions. Feel free to hit the print button and read this later when you have the time. I'll happily engage with people who disagree with me – but please read to the end before you hit reply…)

There is a peculiar rhythm to awful events in or connected with Israel . At first everyone is shocked, and watching the news. Then, after a brief pause, lots of emails start to fly around. And then, after some while, people adjust to a new reality, and forget the exact details of what happened, and resign themselves to some new ongoing level of trouble. And people retain their pre-assigned perspectives; the lens through which we see is remarkably impervious to the unfolding of events, so that "right-wingers" and "left-wingers" continue to maintain their views regardless of troublesome facts.

Although I recognize these instincts, I find myself in a far different place right now. I am not losing interest; I am not resigned; and I do not feel confused. I do feel sad, but far more I feel angry. It was Golda Meir, I think, who said something like "I might be able to forgive them for what they have done to us; but I can never forgive them for what they have made us do to them." That sums up one key aspect of how I've been feeling these last three weeks.

It is of course the case that no human life is any less precious than any other. He who saves one life, it is as if he has saved a whole world. It's a famous line from Jewish tradition, but we too rarely think of its obverse: that he who takes one life, it is as if he has destroyed an entire world. And of course he has – the life lost; the children as yet unborn; the family and friends devastated by the loss. There are more lives that have been lost in Lebanon and Gaza these last few weeks than in Israel, and more worlds destroyed.

But I support Israel right now – its state, its people, its government and its armed forces – more resolutely than at almost any time in my life. I hold responsible for this mayhem those who initially unleashed weapons on Israel, those who crossed the border to kidnap and murder, those who – far from seeking not to injure civilians, as the IDF has done – have instead gone out of their way to launch missiles indiscriminately pointed toward civilian centers, and have placed offensive armaments amidst children and old people.

TV news is unremittingly uncontextual. It shows images, the more visceral the better, and with more lives being lost in Lebanon than in Israel there is an inevitable logic to news crews broadcasting from there, and the gradual litany that "there is terrible bloodshed on both sides, and awful loss of life, and Lebanon is being devastated, and there ought to be a ceasefire."

It is an easy position for news journalists to reach, but I am not in any way persuaded that it is correct. The death of the murderer and the death of the victim are not equivalent deaths. Those who launch missiles randomly towards civilian centers, and cheer when they "succeed" and those who seek not to kill innocent bystanders, and who are deeply and visibly upset when they do so, are not equivalent.

I have been on the left of the Jewish community for most of my adult life. I can recall Shabbat meals in London and Jerusalem when I argued that Israel ought to recognize the PLO – when it was illegal for Israelis to meet with members of the PLO – and people were truly shocked. I have been in favor of peace; I have been in favor of a Palestinian state; and I have been in favor of territorial withdrawal. But to my considerable sadness and my even more considerable anger, these last few weeks have proven me at least partly wrong.

Last year, the first day of our Israel Ride took place on Yom Ha'Atsma'ut ( Israel's Independence Day.) More than 100 of us (including the Palestinian and Jordanian students who are part of the Ride) cycled towards and then alongside Gaza – together with a 10-mile traffic jam of right-wing protesters, flying orange flags on their cars, driving to the Jewish settlements of northern Gaza to express their opposition to the withdrawal.

And I was happy that we cycled there that day, because although I was in favor of the withdrawal, I felt a considerable difference in tone between the attitudes of those who were in favor of withdrawal here in the US and those in favor in Israel, and I thought it was important for us as visitors to experience some of how Israelis experienced the issue. In the US the tone was "of course Israel should withdraw" – and that was that. In Israel it was more nuanced. On the one hand there was some sadness for the people leaving their homes. I empathized with that sadness, but that did not seem to me grounds not to withdraw, if the withdrawal in broader terms made sense. But there was a second reason for concern, and it was one I expressed at the time to a number of people. "I'm cautiously in favor of the withdrawal," I said, "but I'm also a tiny bit scared that the Palestinians, in having full control of Gaza, will one day import heavy weapons into Gaza . And if, G!d forbid, they launch missiles at Tel Aviv and kill 20,000 people, then the withdrawal will have been a mistake, and those of us in favor of it will have been wrong."

That's the backdrop to what's happening now. Israel withdrew from the Lebanon, and then it withdrew from Gaza. And from shortly after the withdrawal from Gaza, missiles began to land in Israel. From first Gaza and then Lebanon, murderous attacks were launched into Israel – attacks from which a number of soldiers were killed, and three soldiers have been kidnapped, and are presumably being held right now in circumstances one can hardly imagine. I do not believe that there is anything that the Israeli government could have done but to respond with massive force; because in the face of enemies who are determined to kill us, and who have the wherewithal to do so, the only possible deterrent to further and further incursions is an "excessive" response. One which, in the case of Lebanon, makes plain to the Lebanese people and the Lebanese government that they bear responsibility for their state and its borders, and that they have two choices: to maintain peace at the border by disarming Hezbollah, or else to see their country ruined and innocent people tragically killed. I trust that in due course there will be a ceasefire or a cessation. When the dust clears, I cannot imagine that the Lebanese people will not wish to prevent Hezbollah from launching attacks on Israel again. If that is the case, Israel's response will have been not only morally justified but also effective.

And until then, when you see the TV and read the newspapers: remember that the death of every innocent in Lebanon is an act of murder no less committed by Hezbollah than if they had pulled the trigger themselves. Not one of the people who has died would have lost their lives had Israelis not been killed, inside Israel, in the events that triggered all of this. I no more hold Israel responsible for the deaths in Lebanon than I hold England responsible for innocent German deaths after the Nazis invaded Poland. And I can only imagine what the American response would be if 70 million people across the northern tier of the USA were in bomb shelters, just as a quarter of Israel's population in the north is again either in bomb shelters this Shabbat or else have fled their homes to stay with friends further south. Last night I saw John Simpson's report on the BBC news. He flew over northern Israel – deserted. Streets empty; beaches empty; roads empty; fields untilled. We witnessed one million people leaving New Orleans last year; imagine what it would be like if a quarter of this country had to leave their homes.

And as each day goes by, and as the disproportionate number of deaths in Lebanon continues, ask yourself what you would do if you were the Prime Minister of Israel. Ask yourself what you'd do if you lived in northern Israel and knew that there were people on the other side of the border who, if not stopped, would choose to launch missiles towards you and your family at any point. And, further – and perhaps most sadly for those of us who hoped to see Israel withdraw from other territories and establish two states at peace with each other – ask yourself whether and under what circumstances you would ever want Israel to make further territorial concessions in the face of such murderous enmity.

Before I say one or two things which I hope will be more positive, I want to say a few last words to friends on the left. There is a place where, temperamentally, it is hard to accept what one sees. There is a place where one wants to be somewhat critical of Israel, or not overly critical of Palestinians, or Moslems, or whomever we identify as "they." There is a place where one instinctively says, "on the one hand…" and then "but on the other hand…"

Those instincts are psychologically understandable – but they do not alter a harsh and brutal reality when that reality is too harsh to avoid. The question is not whether one has compassion for innocent Lebanese who have lost their lives, or for whole parts of Lebanon that have been destroyed. The question is where the blame for that lies, and whether Israel could have acted otherwise. Israel's response may indeed not make Israel wholly safe; but failing to have responded in something like this way would I think clearly have endangered the lives of far more Israelis than have already been killed. No government and no people could allow such attacks to proceed, and those of us who don't fear missiles as we go to bed this night should think twice and thrice before venturing to criticize those who do.

So then: In the face of this utterly depressing logic, what can we do?

I offer a number of suggestions.

The first is a classically Jewish answer: that the heart of changing the world and changing oneself is to learn. That means reading – read Ha'Aretz , read the Jerusalem Post . And feel free to read those who hate Israel or disagree with us – that will do you no harm. (I read some of the blogs on the Guardian , to which I have broadly two responses: a/ there are some horribly prejudiced people out there and b/ I wish they'd have some similar interest in the rights of people in Tibet and Darfur and elsewhere.) If you don't subscribe to the Forwardor the Jewish Week (or the London Jewish Chronicle you should do so. Visit Israel and travel to the north. Don't be intimidated intellectually by the notion that "it's all too confusing" – face the reality of what's going on and explore for yourself and think about what you'd do if you were in Israel now.

The second response is not to lose hope. The English orthodox chief rabbi, Sir Jonathan Sacks, wrote an entire book, a rather good one, in which he argued that hope was a Jewish virtue. The haftorah that we read tomorrow is a vision of destruction – but it is interlaced with, and ends with, a sense of hope. I have no idea how Israel will see itself through this latest challenge. But I have hope and I have faith that Israel will indeed do so, and each of us in our own way has the opportunity to play some part in that.

The third answer is to express your views within the political system. As a European I look at the response of European governments to Israel with a mixture of sadness, astonishment and anger. I do not think that terrorists murdered 3,000 New Yorkers on 9/11 because America supported Israel ; it is at least as true that Israel is hated because it is a bastion of " America" – meaning democracy, western liberalism, feminism, respect for gays and lesbians, and so on – in the Middle East . So express to your elected officials – local and national – your support for Israel and your support for American policies that reflect an understanding of the challenges that Israel faces. It's easy to find their contact info on the web, and the more that you express an opinion in your own voice, the more useful that will be.

Fourth, the way of tzedakah. I believe that it's appropriate to support a range of different organizations, each of which plays a different role in the eco-system of organized Jewish life.

These are some that I support, and the reasons why:

UJA Federation – www.ujc.org – www.ujafedny.org- because the federation remains the single central address for the Jewish community and for Jewish people in times of need. It is far too easy to criticize federations. I'm reminded of the G K Chesterton line – "my country, right or wrong, is like my mother, drunk or sober." Although the Federations have launched emergency mailboxes for donations to Israel, that is not the primary reason that I think one should support them now. It is rather that events like these are a reminder of our ongoing obligation to contribute to federation. I'm struck by the fact that in a horrible way, which we none of us like to accept or believe, what is going on right now represents a fundamental attack on the Jewish people itself and on our right to live as a free people. The Federations are good organizations, led by good staffs and good layleaders – but they would be strengthened immeasurably if they had twice as many donors and volunteers. Federations are a money-weighted and sweat-equity-weighted democracy, and if you want to see a more representative Federation then make a donation that is meaningful to you and offer to become involved in some way.

New Israel Fund . One has only to look at events in the US and the UK these last few years to know that times of war and fear place stress on even stable civil societies. Israel's ultimate and deepest security depends on being an equitable society in every respect, and New Israel Fund is the central address for helping Israel to become that society.

Seeds of peace . I still remember the Shabbat of chol hamoed pesach in Israel, the week of the Netanya bombing. At lunch and se'udah shlishit we were with friends each of whom had had kids' called up to the army that week; as Shabbat went out my friend's cellphone went and it was her son to say that he was about to go into Gaza – and he was fine, and she shouldn't worry. Then we went over to Ned Lazarus and his apartment with volunteers from Seeds of Peace. They were getting text messages from Palestinian kids who were terrified of the Israeli army – texting that they were in the village outside, and what should they do?

Just as I say to people on the left that we ought to support Federation, so too I would say to those on the right that it is absolutely necessary to support Seeds of Peace. What Israel is doing in Lebanon is a brutal response to an unconscionable series of attacks. At its best it may deter future equivalent attacks. But it will do nothing whatsoever to create peace; indeed, the murderers from Hizbollah and Hamas who began all this precisely wanted to prevent the possibility of peace, and one source of my rage is that they have been horribly successful. Peace, if it ever arises, will build within the timespan of Jewish history – which is to say, it's going to take a long time. In a world where I get irritated if I have to wait more than three minutes in a restaurant, or 10 seconds at an ATM, it is no wonder that having to wait possibly generations for peace seems unbearable. But this is again a place where Jewish tradition now requires of us emotional resilience. The clichéd line from Pirkei Avot – we are not required to complete the task, but neither can we desist – applies to the process of peace-making.

The Arava Institute for Environmental Studies . I leave the greatest hope for true peace till last. Many of you on this list have supported AIES, directly or indirectly, by sponsoring someone in our Israel and NY Rides. Nearly one thousand people on this list have met students from AIES, either at our NY Ride or the Israel Ride. In bringing together students who want to become professional environmental leaders in the Middle East, AIES has created the most intense laboratory of Israeli Jews, Israeli Palestinians, Jordanians, Palestinians and Americans living closely together anywhere in the middle east. It's a small blessing for the AIES that they're in the south, out of range of what's happening elsewhere in the country. The world needs Israelis and Palestinians who are out of range of the missiles, who can continue to argue with each other and still remain friends – at the very least, still maintain warm and cordial relationships – in the midst of disagreement. The rather harsh things I wrote in the first part of this email derive from a determination not to shirk realities I find uncomfortable. But it is that same determination that made me place a page about "Naqba" ( the destruction); how Palestinians refer to the establishment of the State of Israel – alongside the page about Yom Ha'Atzma'ut in last year's Israel Rider Pack. Just as Hezbollah has forced Israel to act violently in the north, with violence leading to more violence, so too respect and listening generate understanding and then empathy and then affection. I haven't talked about "politics" with many of the Palestinians and Jordanians I've met through AIES. I don't feel I know them well enough. It is good enough, for me, that I know some of those students personally, and like them, and talk to them, and hang out with them a little, and vice versa. And know that they are learning in Israel and opening themselves to our people and our traditions. That reminds me of my obligation to learn about their families and their narratives. The place of hazon – of a vision of peace and not of destruction – is rooted, as the words of tomorrow's haftarah close, with justice, repentance and righteousness -

"Zion shall be redeemed with justice; her repentant ones with righteousness."

Shabbat shalom

Nigel

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 temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global mean sea level," the summary said.

The report said greenhouse gases were already responsible for a series of existing problems, including fewer cold days, hotter nights, intense heat waves, floods and heavy rains, droughts and an increase in the strength of hurricanes and tropical storms.

The scale of such phenomena in the 21st century "would very likely be larger than those observed during the 20th century", it said, warning that no matter how much humanity reduces greenhouse gas emissions, global warming and sea level rises would continue for hundreds of years.

It is clear that a tipping point in public consciousness has now been reached. The new UN Secretary General plans to call a climate change summit. Wal-Mart is going green, and the chairman of Lehman Brothers argues for carbon caps. In the UK Tesco, the dominant food retailer, just announced that it will label all 70,000 of its manufactured food products with information on how much carbon dioxide is emitted in their manufacture, Marks & Spencer announced that they plan to make all of their stores carbon-neutral, and the Conservative Party – the Conservative Party – announced that as of this year, their annual party conference will also be carbon neutral. Most recently Prince Charles cancelled a skiing trip in Switzerland in order to reduce his carbon footprint.

When three years ago Rabbi Dr Arthur Waskow started talking about “global scorching” (rather than the milder-sounding “global warming”) and when he started talking about “oil addiction” and our need to wean ourselves from it he was, as he has so often been in the past, a prophet, in both senses of the word. Sometimes it takes a long time for the words of prophets to be heeded. Not so these last three years. This morning’s IPCC report I think marks the end of one of phase of our history, and the beginning of a new one: The Age of Awareness, perhaps; an era in which our desire not to face uncomfortable truths has finally been unpeeled.

It’s against this backdrop that we need now to think about the future of the Jewish environmental movement. Events are accelerating dramatically. There are two different issues that need to be addressed. The first is a broad one: what is and should be the purpose of the Jewish environmental movement? The second is a more prosaic one: how should the existing Jewish environmental organizations work together more effectively in coming years? I’m going to say something briefly about the first of these questions today, and expand on both of them over the coming weeks.

For the Jewish community to make a difference on environmental issues, we need brutal honesty to begin with. Jews are now roughly 0.2% of the world’s population; less than the margin of error on the Indian census. If all the Jews in the world recycle their newspapers it will make… pretty much no difference whatsoever. Nor if we put a solar-powered ner tamid in every synagogue, nor, more radically, if every Jew in the world swapped their existing car for a hybrid. (Assume 12m Jews, 4m cars, each one doing 1000 miles a month, and improving by 10 mpg their usage. So we’d save let’s say 15 gallons x 12 months x 4m people, which is roughly 750 million gallons of oil a year. It sounds a lot; but there are 42 gallons in a barrel. So it’s about 18 million barrels a year. OPEC drills more than that in a day.)

I’m not saying that Jews shouldn’t drive hybrids, or change our behavior more generally. I’m not saying that burning 18 million barrels fewer a year wouldn’t be a tremendously important thing to do. I’m simply pointing out that even an accomplishment which seems impossibly beyond our current capacity for restraint and behavioral change is also impossibly small in relation to the impact we need to have to reverse the damage we are presently doing.

Put a different way: when AJWS leads a multi-faith campaign to Save Darfur they don’t know whether they will succeed. But the possibility of Western intervention to stop the killing there is not hard to imagine. So the effort to accomplish it is fuelled partly by our people that we really can accomplish measurable positive change.

And on the issue of climate change and environmental destruction we face the prospect of living our entire lives against a backdrop of accelerating deterioration. To put it mildly, we are not psychologically well-prepared to cope with this scenario.

This is the backdrop against which I want to be clear about the purposes of the Jewish environmental movement at this moment in time.

We cannot by our individual actions effect change; we cannot even, as a people, in our own behavior, directly create the change we would like. But what we can do is play, as we have always played, a vital role in shifting the trajectory of a very long run conversation about the nature of human life on this planet. This we not only can do, we actually must do.

The best way to understand this is through the prism of Tesco’s decision about carbon-labeling its food. It’s a decision which reveals the fascinating relationship between the educational and advocacy work of environmental non-profits, individual consumer behavior, and the workings of the market. I do trust in one sense the ethical sensibility that partly underpins a decision like that; I do believe that there are senior managers at Tesco who care about enabling their customers to have the information to reduce their carbon output. But clearly there’s a different calculation at work also: that carbon-labeling their products will afford Tesco competitive advantage in relation to their competitors. That in turn implies two key presumptions: first, that a significant minority of their existing customers (at least) will want this information; and secondly, that in being, at least for a while, the only supermarket chain that provides this information, they will draw customers from other chains simply because those customers also want that information.

Tesco, in this sense, are responding to a dramatic shift of sensibility and concern within the British population; and that shift has been led by the environmental groups who have steadily brought to all our attention the issues we now need to address.

This is why the Jewish people needs to turn its attention to these issues. As my friend Rabbi Steve Greenberg pointed out at Hazon’s New York Jewish Environmental Bike Ride two years ago, we offer a unique capability to frame conversations in extremely long timescales. And I would add that we offer the world two cultural treasures – Shabbat and halacha – which are more radical in their capability to effect change than almost anything else that exists in the world today. Shabbat is about the notion that, one day in seven, every seventh day, we cease consuming and destroying and simply rest. I don’t care if you keep Shabbat on a Saturday, a Friday, a Sunday or frankly a Tuesday: but the narrow Jewish conversation about whether and in what ways we “keep Shabbat” needs now to play out on a larger stage. So too our experience with the relationship between halacha (Jewish practice) and education. Not everything is about the rights of the individual or the role of the state. Between the two sit the realm of self-restraint, and the role that education and community play in inculcating it. We know a good deal on this topic, and we have not fully understood how important and significant it is.

The elements of Jewish education and Jewish advocacy that we develop around these issues need to be seen within this broader context. We do need to change our behavior, as individuals and as a community, and we do need to stand up in Washington DC, in an organized way, to argue for key governmental and inter-governmental measures that are vitally necessary. But in what we do we need to understand our actions and behaviors in a wider and longer context. And we need to start to think much more deeply about what it means to make a distinctively Jewish contribution to the future wellbeing of the world and its inhabitants.

So… I have much more I want to say. I’m aware that what I have written may be less than clear to many people. But I plan to write more in coming weeks and to expand this. For now, I’ll simply say that Hazon’s broadest purpose is to create a healthier and more sustainable Jewish community, as a step towards a healthier and more sustainable world for all. “Healthier and more sustainable” can mean getting on a bike; it can be about the food you eat; but it can also be about the health and sustainability of multi-generational communities, or the relationship between Israel and the Diaspora, or the development of Jewish thinking over time. Each of the Jewish holidays comes to remind us of something that, ideally, we should be thinking about the whole year round. On this eve of Tu B’Shevat, my blessing for me and you and all of us, in cascading circles of family, community and humanity, is that together we learn to live more healthily and more sustainably, and that in so doing we play the part we can in leaving a better world for those who come after us.

Shabbat shalom

Nigel

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 "teshuva, tefilla and tzedakah avert the evil decree."

Teshuva – returning to our best selves – segues easily into a contemporary neo-therapeutic perspective. We may struggle to improve ourselves, but the desirability of doing so seems clear.

Tzedaka – doing justly – is similarly incontestable as a moral good.

But tefilla is hard, made the harder by the gap between the seeming presumption of the language of prayer – that there is an omniscient omnipotent G!d listening to our words and thoughts this very moment – and the solid instinct on the part of many of us that this is simply not the case.

Over the years, in the course of struggling with the davenning – not just Rosh Hashanah davenning, but davenning generally – I've tried different strategies to cope. I’ve learned that they're all reasonable, partly because our interaction with prayer itself is changeable. Like a sophisticated Rorschach test, we see or feel different things at different times, even if the prayer itself is unchanging. So I share these different strategies, to make of what you will.

The first, and the one I think I did the most between the ages of about seven and 15, is to seek to read the Hebrew as fast as you possibly can. I did this because it was what my father was doing, and I assumed that it was therefore what I needed to do also. There is a certain satisfaction in reading an ancient prayer fluently, and a certain rhythm and cadence in the Hebrew which you can feel even if you don't understand the words.
There was a period, from the age of 15 and for quite a while afterwards, when I rejected this approach as stupid and empty – why say words if you either didn't know what they meant, or did know and didn't believe in them? – but now I'm not so sure.

I read a lovely article a few years ago that compared the brainwaves of people doing TM, transcendental meditation, with the brainwaves of Jewish people while davenning. They tested three sorts of davenners: one group who read the words slowly, in Hebrew, with comprehension; one who read the prayers in English; and one group that just davenned as fast as they could in Hebrew, mostly regardless of comprehension. It was this third group that turned out to have brainwaves almost identical to those of people doing TM – which is to say, significantly more relaxed and calm than we normally are whilst awake.

I was amused and delighted by this article. "My children have defeated me!" is G!d's famous response in a Talmudic story in which heavenly intervention is rejected in favor of rabbinic due process. I read this article and thought, "My great-great-grandparents have defeated me!" Here I am, with an advanced degree in Jewish history, I spent all this time learning Hebrew and trying to understand the prayers, and it turns out that just rattling them off without worrying about theology or meaning is good for you after all.

So: if you can read Hebrew, and you're in the mood – and maybe especially if you're not in the mood – I commend just soaking into the words, reading them along at whatever is for you a comfortable pace, and thinking occasionally about the fact that you're doing something that your grandparents' grandparents – certainly your grandfather's grandfather – did for most of their lives, in many cases three times a day. From an unknown ancient beginning until the shattering of the French Revolution and the challenge of modernity, regular rhythmic davenning anchored their lives, calmed their days and – it seems likely – did a variety of unmeasured good to their heart rate, brainwaves and resting pulse.

The second strategy is the opposite of the first: read the prayers in English, focusing not on dashing through them, but on reading them and thinking about them. This, of course, can be nearly fatal to one's Jewish journey. We stumble over theology, theodicy, metaphors that have no real meaning in our lives, concepts we don't agree with. It can be very tough.

Still, nearly fatal is not the same as fatal. I have become a fan of reading prayers – with kavannah, with sincerity and understanding – in English, and I think the practice is under-rated, especially in orthodox and conservadox crowds, where reading things in English seems somehow not really Jewish.

Part of the trick in reading a prayer in English is the trick of reading Shakespeare, except that we're a lot more tolerant of Shakespeare than we are of English translations of prayer. When we read Shakespeare – more likely, when we hear Shakespeare – we forgive the archaisms and difficulties of the language not so much because of the poetry but because of the emotional accuracy. Our words may change, but our emotions and our crises, at root, do not.

I think that this is the key to responding to the plain meaning of prayer, and especially to the bits over which we stumble. The simplest way I can explain this is by reference to the standard beginning of a prayer, "Blessed are you G!d, our G!d, King of the universe:"

For a long time I would have said, a/ this seems to be directed to a G!d who is listening to my prayer, and I don't believe in such a G!d; b/ what does it mean, “our G!d” – what about everyone else? And c/ "King of the universe" – ???

To me, now – though I still sometimes feel these things – I'm usually more generous in my understanding of them. In a famous essay, T S Eliot spoke of an "objective correlative" in relation to poetry, the way that poetry is an attempt to convey a particular feeling from author to reader, via the particular construction of words. Using Eliot's concept, we need to think a little about what was or what might be the objective correlative of our prayers. What was the underlying original feeling for which the Hebrew is an approximation and a vehicle, and the English a translation of that approximation?

When you think of it in this way, the meaning of the prayer is a bridge back from our postmodern uncertainties to the different but parallel uncertainties of an ancient world. We need to know what is the same, and what has changed. I want to explain this by reference to the word we use for our Deity.

As a kid I grew up not writing the word "God" in English but rather writing "G-d", which is how people do it in the orthodox world, the idea being not merely that the name of G-d is holy but also ineffable, not capable of being captured and contained like other words. Nowadays I instead write "G!d", a twist suggested by Reb Zalman Schacter-Shalomi, and one that makes sense to me. The word "G!d" is, in a sense, our era's translation of the word "G-d." It is different because, like it or not, our scientific world has a different notion of G!d than that of our grandparents of centuries past. In a famous article in Tradition (an orthodox journal), a few years back, Professor Chaim Soloveitchik noted that despite the rise in learning and in some forms of observance in orthodox communities, he nevertheless observed the loss of a certain kind of awe in the davenning. When he was a kid, he wrote, he would sometimes see relatively unlearned people davenning the prayers on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and sobbing as they did so, because they really felt themselves to be judged and because they were in fear for the coming year.
Soloveitchik felt that the absence of such a sight today was the measure of how our attitude to prayer, and our belief in G!d – and in divine judgement and punishment – has shifted whether we like it or not.

Yet the similarity between G!d and G-d is the place where we can connect with the prayers despite the superficial problems of doing so. We have seen the photographs of planet earth taken from space, the blue and green, the clouds, the swirling living beauty of it. We can pull up images at the click of a mouse, print CAT scans of our brain, speak into a small tablet of plastic and metal and be heard by a loved one across the city or across the ocean. My grandma, who died in 2003 at the age of 95, was born when human-powered flight was just beginning, horses and trams filled the streets, television didn't exist. "Blessed are you G!d, our G!d, King of the universe…" is a translation of "how amazing is this world, how incredible, how unbelievable, how incomprehensible, how hard to grasp, how beautiful, and also how scary, how risky and how terrifying"

If you read the prayers with comprehension, you have to do so also with imagination. You have to leap back to the seventeenth century in Safed, to the eleventh century in France and Spain, to the sixth century in Babylon
- in Iraq -, to the turn of the millennium and the centuries before in the hills of Jerusalem, the forests of the Galil, the wadis of the Negev, the raw grandeur and blistering heat and beautiful unlikely pools of the Sinai. You have to think of the regular perils of daily life – illnesses, childbirth, failed crops, rain too much or too little – and the aching human desire to respond, to cry out, to express thanks for salvation, supplications for blessing in the coming year.

Our world is actually not so different. We don't know what the coming year will bring. The dawn of September 11th 2001 saw the beginnings of what promised to be a beautiful day in New York. A five year old girl was mauled to death by a black bear in the Catskills. A woman that we sedered with in April 2002 was blown to pieces in a cafeteria at the Hebrew University four months later. Those who davenned in New York the Rosh Hashanah of 2001 will not soon forget the sobs that rent the synagogues as the chazan cried out the ancient words, "who shall live and who shall die, who at the predestined time and who before their time, who by water and who by fire, who by sword and who by beast."

So: read the prayers with comprehension, but as you do so, translate them again – translate them into whatever it takes to get at what's underneath them, whether it's thankfulness, amazement, delight, desire, fear. When you scratch hard enough what you get to is a human emotion and a personal response that you have felt at some time, and that the prayers are there to remind you of.

And there's one last thing I want to say about davenning: not about the words or the meaning but about the music.

The innovations of the last century – radio, gramophone, TV, stereo, CD, iPods – have steadily destroyed a culture of gathering in the home or in extended family gatherings and singing. We're not used to the sound of our own voices, and many people will naturally say "I can't sing, I can't hold a tune." We now expect perfection from our singers, and if we don't ourselves meet that standard we're embarrassed and we'd sooner not try.
Linked to that, in the synagogues, is the potential unfamiliarity of the service. If we don't know the tune we quickly tune out as active participants.

Yet we also feel the beauty of much of the music of the high holyday davenning. I personally am always sad when Yom Kippur falls on Shabbat, because it means we don't sing avinu malkeinu, the song which punctuates the five movements of the Yom Kippur symphony. As the day goes on, I sing it louder and louder, and at neilah, the concluding service, I'm belting it out, and I hear the people around me belting it out, and I know that we each of us, in different ways, have pushed through the difficulties of meaning and translation and have reached a shared emotional bedrock:
please let me be a better person this year; please let things go better for my family, my friends, my community, Israel, the whole world; I really do mean to be better, please, power of the universe, help me do this, help this come true.

So soak into the music of the holidays, and sing even if you think you can't, and sing loudly if you normally sing quietly. You will sing yourself into the prayers, and in doing so you may sing the people around you into the prayers also.

The very last thing is that tefilla, of course, is to be understood not by itself but in relation with tzedakah and teshuvah. We can seek to better ourselves (through teshuva, and that includes getting on a bike and getting in shape and eating more healthily as well) or the world (through tzedaka, and that too is an infinite number of possibilities), but if we want to do both, and Jewish tradition clearly signifies that we can and should, then somehow prayer, tefilla, is the connecting thread. One of the ideas behind Hazon's Jewish environmental bike rides is that they create an opportunity to do all three together. It's not our grandparents'
Judaism, but increasingly it is ours.

To me it's clear that, as a community, we need to try to re-sacralize daily life, to see holiness beyond the boundaries of traditional synagogue prayer, to understand that connection with each other, with Jewish tradition, and with the wider world around us, is capable of happening – needs to happen – in new ways.

At the same time, I think we need a different sort of leap of faith when we do walk into a synagogue. Many of my own pathways to prayer have come from outside the synagogue and the prayer book: everything from yoga and TM (which I learned, of course, from a rabbinical student I had first met on a Greek island) to hiking, watching the sun come up in the desert and learning from Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk.

I go into the prayer service of Rosh Hashanah not expecting necessarily to enjoy it, but knowing that it somehow connects me to my better self and to a better community, and knowing also that the moments of transcendence I've experienced in my life are ones which would have been understood by the rabbis of old who created these prayers. We need to trust that we can bring our whole selves with us, our experiences, our education, our therapy, our complicated lives, and yet trust that this tradition, so old, so strong, so supple, has wisdom and gifts for us, if we can only be open to the prayers and gentle with ourselves and each other.

Shana tova: may it be a sweet and healthy and peaceful year for you, for all whom you hold dear, and for the living world that sustains us.

Nigel Savage
Elul 5766 / September 2006

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 conservadox. At the other end of the spectrum is a girl who attends a Conservative dayschool but has a Turkish Moslem father and and is proud of her Turkish heritage. Most are from the Boston area, but one is from the Midwest. The strongest character is a sixteen year old girl; the youngest, a thirteen year old boy who is big for his age and who seems to be present in consequence of familial "encouragement" – his cousin really wants the trip to happen and says that without him there'll be too few people.

Also two leaders: me – English, 30-something, observant, liberal, relatively late in life to the delights of outdoor living – and my co-leader, Liora, in her twenties, from a strong dayschool background but now secular. Liora is tough and down-to-earth and her idea of fun is leading non-Jewish teenagers from rough backgrounds on demanding hikes.

The plan was that we'd do a day or two of orientation at Camp Friedman, in upstate New York, and then drive up to New Hampshire to do an extended hike in the White Mountains.

And now share with me my four most vivid memories of the trip:

• The first afternoon, at Camp Friedman, trudging off to a campsite just twenty minutes away – but in horrific cold torrential rain (in midsummer), miserable dark skies, and the thirteen year old boy coming down with flu;
• The third day of the White Mountains hike, meeting up with our van for re-supplies, and a clear majority of the group say "that's it – the weather's awful, we hate this, we're not going back up;"
• Shabbat afternoon up in the mountains. In hard driving rain, Liora and I tighten our tarp for extra protection, whereupon our two most observant students point out (halachically correctly) that this is a desecration of Shabbat and that they won't now enter the tarp;
• Hiking down, a few days later, when we're all tired. One girl's rucksack will hardly fit her and it's hard for her to carry it and someone keeps falling: Liora and I are terrified that someone's really going to get hurt.

Against this sad litany, the reasons that I think that Jews in general ought to get outdoors a lot more – whether hiking, biking, rock-climbing or expeditioning, and whether for a few hours or for several months – may not be easily apparent. But consider this counter-list:

• too much of our world is [literally] over-sanitized. Wilderness trips are an antidote to that. From facing a degree of risk, to pooping in the woods, to learning about natural cycles, getting outdoors brings our regular life into an older and rawer perspective;
• as a people, we Jews formed ourselves in the wilderness, and it shows. From the brachot of waking up to the specific brachot for thunder and lightning, to bensching and the brachot of using the bathroom, to building an eruv for Shabbat, to seeing Torah as practical jurisprudence in resolving arguments, Judaism comes alive outdoors in ways that are very different from, and shed great light on, most peoples' synagogue experience;
• when you go into the wilderness as a group, you have to deal with issues as a group. Cliques which might be acceptable in a school or youth group are less acceptable where you need to move together. Our trip was far from perfect in this regard, but it nevertheless drew out issues of religious and other difference, and raised important – and real – questions about the relationship between, for instance, a commitment to pluralism on the one hand, and one's understanding of Jewish tradition on the other.
• our parents want the world to be safe for us, as they properly should; but facing appropriate challenges helps us grow stronger in every way. In our midtrip mutiny my response was very different from a school environment, where students might simply be told what to do. What I actually said was the opposite: that the weather had been awful, that it had been hard, that we were tired and that no-one in fact was forced to go on. I said, too, that I hoped people would go on, that we were planning to go up to a place where we'd have great views, that the weather was due to lift, and that I thought people would feel proud of themselves if they kept going. But I made clear that each person had a real choice, and that they really didn't have to go on. Both the reality of that choice, and the pride that can derive from facing a difficult choice and then seeing it through, are hard to replicate in our normal surroundings.

These four miserable memories are not the only reasons to get outdoors, of course. I haven't mentioned how beautiful stunning views can be; how great it feels to work up a good sweat and get really fit; how much fun it is crossing rivers; how much I love singing by the fire – and building the fire in the first place. I haven't mentioned how weird food combinations (like stale pitta bread with sardines, jelly and mustard, say) can taste just great on the fourth day of a hike. I haven't mentioned saying kiddush levana (the blessing over the new moon) outdoors, or dancing at kabbalat Shabbat, or what it feels like to have saved a "clean" outfit for Shabbat when you've been out in the woods for a couple of weeks. I haven't mentioned mikveh experiences in freezing rivers, or elaborate ropes courses 50 or 60 feet up in the air. Or learning to tie special kinds of knots, or rock-climbing for the first time, or rock-climbing blindfolded to learn to trust your feet and hands, or learning the first-aid stuff that you really hope you'll never have to learn, or even just learning to cook safely or to follow good environmental practice out in the woods. These are the pleasures which one banks in one's memory, and seeks to draw down in moments of misery.

But the moments of misery are ok: I do think that's part of the lesson. We are the first Jewish generation in a very long while who are growing up in conditions of peace, freedom and great prosperity. Getting out into a deeper connexion with planet earth and each other is both a product of that privilege, and the beginnings of responding to it – leading our people to healthier ways of life, in every sense, and helping us learn about the need to heal the planet as we grow.

Nigel Savage, Feb 2000