This past Sunday, over 100 members of the Jewish community, from New Bedford, MA to Brattleboro, VT, gathered at Hebrew College in Newton, MA, for the first Jewish Climate Action Network conference, “From Uncertainty to Action: What You Can Do About Climate Change.” According to Rabbi Arthur Waskow, it was the first conference of its kind, “I would have heard about it,”  he told us, if there had been another.

For four hours, we learned together, sang together, talked together, and connected to each other. And through all this, we were inspired, motivated, and recharged. It was an amazing afternoon. I am grateful to all those who helped make it happen, and to all those who took the time and energy to come. It was a vision fulfilled; it was a start, not and ending. It was a new beginning, of putting the Boston area Jewish community into the conversation about climate change.

As Jews, we are deeply rooted in Torah and in community. Today, we brought these together in the context of climate change.  The power of that connection was felt by every one present.

We will go forward from here, together. We will grow stronger. We will become more connected. We will build community. We will build enthusiasm and determination. We will weave networks of interdependence, caring, compassion, and trust. We will speak out. We will bring about change.

We will make a difference.

Rabbi Katy Allen is a board certified chaplain and serves as a Nature Chaplain and the Facilitator of One Earth Collaborative, a program of Open Spirit. She is the founder and rabbi of Ma’yan Tikvah – A Wellspring of Hope, which holds services outdoors all year long. She is a co-convener and coordinator of the Boston-based Jewish Climate Action Network. 

Summery of the conference:

• Panel exploring what Judaism adds to our understanding and ability to respond to climate change
• Two rounds of workshops, each of which will provide concrete information about a specific way to respond to the threat of climate change and to connect with others
• Opportunity to speak with community organizations and businesses involved in environmental work
• Special workshop for teens and tweens
• Short wrap-up program highlighting what has been accomplished and providing a send off
• Facilitation of informal gatherings for dinner at nearby restaurants those who want to continue the conversations.

A schedule and descriptions of workshops and bios of workshop leaders can be found at http://www.jewishclimate.org/may-2015-conference.html

When: Sunday, May 17, 3-7 PM

Where: Hebrew College, Herrick Road, Newton
Registration: https://secure.hebrewcollege.edu/form/uncertainty-action-what-you-can-do-about-climate-change

Cost: $18 donation (optional); students are free.

Co-sponsors include: Hebrew College, Center for Global Judaism, Hazon, LimmudBoston, Shomrei Bereshit: Rabbis and Cantors for the Earth, and others.

About Eden Village Camp: Eden Village Camp aims to be a living model of a thriving, sustainable Jewish community, grounded in social responsibility and inspired Jewish spiritual life. By bringing the wisdom of our tradition to the environmental, social, and personal issues important to today’s young people, we practice a Judaism that is substantive and relevant. Through our Jewish environmental and service-learning curricula, joyful Shabbat observance, pluralistic Jewish expression, and inspiring, diverse staff role models, we foster our campers’ positive Jewish identity and genuine commitment to tikkun olam (healing the world). Our 3 acre educational farm and orchard are based on principles of permaculture, sustainable and organic farming. We produce annual vegetables, perennials, and tend educational gardens as well as animals.

About the Farm Educator Apprenticeship: This is a paid six-month apprenticeship for young adults seeking hands-on experience. In the Spring build your knowledge based on agriculture, farm-based education and Jewish community. In the Summer, work at our 8-week intensive summer camp as Jewish Farm Educators. In the fall, take ownership and integrate your new skills by diving deeper into independent projects.  Live on-site at our beautiful camp, one hour north of New York City. By joining the farm staff at Eden Village, apprentices will hold two main responsibilities – tending our growing spaces and educating in our all of our programming through the spring, summer and fall. Apprentices will also have an opportunity to dive deeper into one of four focus areas: perennials, annuals, animals, and educational gardens. In these specialties apprentices will gain a deeper understanding of certain aspects of farming and will take on leadership and special projects to booster their learning and the learning of campers and program participants.

Details: April 14th, 2015 – October 22nd 2015, Apprentices receive full room and board at Eden Village, as well as a modest stipend. Extensive experience is not necessary but experiential curiosity is required. We recommend you explore our website thoroughly to get more information about our apprenticeship, farm, camp, and more at Eden Village Camp.

More questions? Explore the FAQ page. For all other questions, contact farm@edenvillagecamp.org

Originally published in Shma: http://shma.com/2014/12/stop-now-shmita-and-climate-change/

Imagine that you’re a wealthy landowner in ancient Israel. You know the shmita (sabbatical) year is coming and what’s required: You must stop planting and let your land lie fallow for the year. You must forego a year of profit. Not only that: Over the past few years, you have lent money to your poor neighbors and now you must forgive their debts so that your neighbors can also let their lands lie fallow. If they were obligated to pay you back, they would not be able to participate. These laws are good for the fertility of the land and for your neighbor’s livelihood and dignity.  But observing shmita, and putting the community’s needs ahead of your own, requires a sacrifice from you. Would you do it?

Fast forward to today: You live in one of the world’s richest countries and you depend on cheap energy extracted from the earth for your livelihood and your lifestyle. In neighboring countries, though, people are poor. They use little energy and they have little money to invest in new infrastructure. Will you try to use energy more efficiently? Will you invest in renewable energy sources that don’t damage the earth? If you will, further warming of the atmosphere will be prevented. Your neighbors, more vulnerable than you because of their poverty, will be protected from rising seas, heat waves, and drought. But caring for their lives requires a sacrifice from you. Will you do it?

Shmita is the Torah’s prescription for environmental, social, and economic sustainability.  Today, climate change is the biggest threat to sustainability. Although the scale of the problems brought on by climate change were unimaginable in the time of the Torah, shmita addressed certain maladies of human society that have not gone away and that now threaten us with self-destruction. As in ancient times, self-interest, greed, short-term thinking, and unsustainable exploitation of people and the earth endanger our existence. Climate change is not a scientific or technical problem. The science is clear and the solutions are ready; it is an ethical problem. Will we, who have benefited from the burning of fossil fuels, take responsibility for the damage and make it right? There are at least three lessons we can learn from shmita.

First, shmita forces us to acknowledge that human existence depends on our relationship to the earth. In ancient times, almost everyone was a subsistence farmer. Agriculture depleted the fertility of the land and, so, it had to be limited. Today, we are all dependent on energy. And our energy system is unsustainable. The mining and burning of fossil fuels is poisoning fresh water, acidifying the ocean, warming the atmosphere, and disrupting the climate. Putting a complete stop to this destructive system seems impossible, just as it must have seemed impossible to our ancestors to stop planting for the shmita year. Shmita challenges us to look beyond the short-term hardship and imagine the future we can create if we act boldly to right this wrong.

Second, shmita teaches us that caring for the earth and caring for people are inseparable. Letting the land lie fallow cannot happen without also forgiving people their debts; in order for all to participate in shmita, the poor cannot be indebted to the wealthy. Those who have more have to make sure that everyone’s needs are met. Today, it is only fair that we who have benefited the most must take the largest responsibility for addressing the climate crisis. Individually, we can reduce our own energy use, purchase electricity from renewable energy suppliers, stop investing in fossil fuel corporations, and vote for leaders who will push for change. As nations, the United States and other wealthy countries must enact ambitious policies to replace energy from coal, oil, and gas, with solar and wind.

Finally, shmita sets a deadline for action. When the seventh year arrives, it has to be observed. Shmita teaches us that we cannot delay taking action until it is convenient or until we are convinced that there is no other choice. Fulfilling our ethical responsibility  is not optional. Even if it seems imprudent or extreme, every seven years we must rededicate ourselves to building a sustainable society in harmony with the earth.

Do we really need this deadline? We certainly do. The first congressional hearings on climate change were held in 1988. The Kyoto Protocol, the international treaty that the United States refused to ratify due to pressure from self-interested industries, was adopted in 1997. The United States has had more than 25 years to commit to stop burning fossil fuels and accelerate the transition to renewable energy, but it has not made nearly enough progress. Although individual cities and states are taking action, there is still no progress in Congress. Fossil fuel companies that care only for profits continue to confuse the public by claiming that there is no need to move away from fossil fuels and that renewable energy technologies are not ready. They hope to extract all of the fossil fuels they have in their reserves.

Each of us has benefited from the burning of fossil fuels that is harming the atmosphere. Each of us has the power to help prevent the worst projections of climate change. Now is the time to take action. The Torah’s wisdom is timeless. And human beings rise to the occasion when we are saddled with an intractable deadline. That’s why we need shmita.

Thirteen Jewish organizations, under the umbrella of the Green Hevra, have issued the following joint statement today publicly calling on the U.S. government to reject the Keystone XL pipeline:

It has become abundantly clear that we are consuming far too many fossil fuels. In this Sabbatical/Shmita year, when the Torah calls for deeper gentleness toward the Earth, we are especially conscious of the dangers to the Earth from the drilling, transporting and burning of tar-sands oil. The resources that would be devoted to the Keystone XL pipeline should be devoted instead to initiatives in clean energy, a fast-growing field in which we hope the United States will take a leading position.

Climate change, worsened by burning more and more oil that the Keystone XL pipeline would permit, poses a grave threat to the security of the United States, Israel and the world.

Jewish tradition is not monolithic, and the issues around the pipeline are complex. But the Jewish community has consistently sought to take a stand in favor of creating a better world for all. It is hard for us to believe that building the Keystone XL pipeline could possibly do so.

This is not the first time that Jewish organizations have taken a stand against Keystone XL and we call upon fellow Jewish leaders to join us in encouraging President Obama and Congress to reject the Keystone XL pipeline.

Signed by the following members of the Green Hevra:

Amir

Aytzim: Ecological Judaism

Eden Village Camp

Energiya Global

Habonim Dror North America

Hazon

Jewish Climate Action Network

Jewish Farm School

Jews Against Hydrofracking

NeoHasid.org

Reconstructionist Rabbinical College / Jewish Reconstructionist Communities

The Shalom Center

Shoresh Jewish Environmental Programs

 
Eternal God, You created earth and heavens with mercy, and blew the breath of life into animals and humans. We were created amidst a world of wholeness, a world called “very good,” pure and beautiful, but now your many works are being erased by us from the book of life.

Not by our righteousness do we plead our prayers before You, Holy One of All, for we have sinned, we have despoiled, we have destroyed.

And so we confess together our collective sins, and ask for forgiveness:

For the sin which we have committed before You intentionally or unintentionally;

And for the sin which we have committed before You inadvertently;

For the sin which we have committed before You openly or secretly,

And for the sin which we have committed before You knowingly or unknowingly;

For the sin which we have committed before You, and before our children and grandchildren, by desecrating the sacred Earth,

And for the sin which we have committed before You of going beyond being fruitful and multiplying to overfilling the planet;

For the sin which we have committed before You by putting comfort above conscience,

And for the sin which we have committed before You by putting convenience above compassion;

For the sin we have committed against You by believing we are doing enough,

And for the sin which we have committed before You by reaping the dividends of unsustainability;

For the sin which we have committed before You through fear of speaking out,

And for the sin which we have committed before You by eating and drinking without concern for Earth and its hungry and thirsty;

For the sin which we have committed before You by saying we don’t have time,

And for the sin which we have committed before You by staying alive beyond the boundaries of our allotted life span:

For all of these, God of pardon, pardon us, forgive us, atone for us.

For the sin which we have committed before You by not pressuring our elected officials,

And for the sin which we have committed before You by gaining wealth through fossil fuels;

For the sin which we have committed before You by denying the impact of our white privilege,

And for the sin which we have committed before You by closing our hearts and eyes to injustice;

For the sin which we have committed before You by filling land and ocean with filth, toxins and garbage,

And for the sin which we have committed before You by extinguishing forever species which You saved from the waters of the flood;

For the sin which we have committed before You by razing forests and trees, rivers and mountains,

And for the sin which we have committed before You by turning the atmosphere into a chastening rod;

For the sin which we have committed before You by making desolate habitats that give life to every living soul,

And for the sin which we have committed before You by a confused heart;

For all of these, God of pardon, pardon us, forgive us, atone for us.

For the sin which we have committed before You by thinking separately of US and THEM,

And for the sin which we have committed before You by using more than our share of Earth’s resources;

For the sin which we have committed before You by considering human life more important than other forms of life,

And for the sin which we have committed before You by being deceived by those with power;

For the sin which we have committed before You by not finding the courage to overcome the reality of the lobbies,

And for the sin which we have committed before You by wanting to act only in ways that will serve us economically;

For the sin which we have committed before You by failing to create sufficient local, green jobs,

And for the sin which we have committed before You by trying to convince people rather than drawing them in;

For the sin which we have committed before You by not thinking into the future when we act,

And for the sin which we have committed before You by living in relative safety and not being caring of others;

For all of these, God of pardon, pardon us, forgive us, atone for us.

And yet, we know that we can only achieve forgiveness from You, O G!d of All That Is after we have sought forgiveness from our fellow living beings, and so, in order to achieve atonement, forgiveness, and pardon,

Help us, Holy One, to enter into loving respectful conversation,

Help us to create deep conversations,

And help us to listen to people.

Help us, Merciful One, to become empowered to talk and to connect,

Help us to be creative in how we start the conversation,

And help us to use our sacred texts as a foundation for our conversations.

Help us, Compassionate One, to start where people are and transition to climate change,

Help us to use humor as a vehicle of engaging people,

Help us to start with experience of nature and end with responsibility of saving world.

In order to achieve atonement, forgiveness, and pardon,

Help us, Holy One, to acknowledge that we are all in this together,

Help us to celebrate the positives happening in the world.

Help us, Source of All, to build coalitions,

Help us to create partnerships where we see other people’s needs.

Help us, Eternal One, to organize local solutions,

And help us to recognize that ownership and collective action are important.

Open our eyes to see the majesty of Your creation! Then we will praise you as it is written: “How manifold are Your works, Holy One! You made them all with wisdom; the earth is filled with what you hold.”

Please, Source of All, protect all living beings, in the shade of your wings give us refuge. Renew the face of the earth, save the weave and fullness of life. Please, Mysterious One, remove the heart of stone from our flesh, and set within us a heart of flesh, that we may behold the Godly therein. Grant us wisdom and courage to heal and to watch over this garden of life, to make it thrive under the heavens.

Help us to realize that we are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

Help us to realize that we are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

Adapted from the traditional Jewish High Holiday liturgy and works by Rabbi Lawrence Troster, Rabbi Daniel Nevins (which I found at neohasid.org), and, at the suggestion of Rabbi Judy Weiss, material from the Jewish Climate Action Network of Boston created with the help of Gary Rucinski.

Note: Hyperlinks above are to organizations that work to help the environment in ways that bear some relationship to the selected text. This is a work in progress, and I hope to add more links. If you have suggestions, please email them to rabbikza@verizon.net.

Rabbi Katy Z. Allen is the founder and leader of Ma’yan Tikvah – A Wellspring of Hope in Wayland, MA, and a staff chaplain at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. She is the co-convener of the Jewish Climate Action Network, a member of the Jewcology.org editorial board, a board member of Shomrei Bereishit: Rabbis and Cantors for the Earth, and the co-creator of Gathering in Grief: The Israel / Gaza Conflict.

• Mourning the murders of three young men 50 years ago;

• Celebrating a Mississippi that today is very different;

• Facing the truth that Earth and human communities –– especially, still, those of color and of poverty –- are being deeply wounded by the Carbon Pharaohs’ exploitation and oppression;

• Talking/ working toward a future of joyful community in which Mother Earth and her human children can live in peace with each other in the embrace of One Breath.
  

And then, a few days later, came the news of the murders of three young men just weeks ago –- three Israeli youngsters, their bodies, like those of Mickey Schwerner, Andy Goodman, and James Earl Chaney, hidden while the search went forward for them.

But not only them. The violent deaths of young Palestinian boys/men as well, during the Israeli Army crack-down on the West Bank. Their mothers also mourning. As the New York Times reported the day before the three Israeli bodies were discovered:

“Most Israelis see the missing teenagers as innocent civilians captured on their way home from school, and the Palestinians who were killed as having provoked soldiers. Palestinians, though, see the very act of attending yeshiva in a West Bank settlement as provocation, and complain that the crackdown is collective punishment against a people under illegal occupation.”

Is there a danger of “moral relativism” in mentioning these deaths together? Is the cold-blooded murder of three hitchhiking youngsters morally equivalent to killings carried out by angry, frightened soldiers faced with a protesting mob? At the individual level, No.

But at the level of public policy, there is also no moral equivalence between a cold-blooded military occupation and the impotent rage of the occupied.

Above all, there is no “relativism” in the tears of mothers.

Some Israelis and some Palestinians have joined their sorrow over the killings of their own children to work in the Circle of Bereaved Families for a peace that would end the killing. (See <http://www.theparentscircle.com/>.)

Others –-including some Israeli cabinet ministers in the last day — have defined their deaths as the warrant for more killing.

But Mississippi did not change through threats like that. It changed because an aroused American citizenry from outside Mississippi allied itself with the oppressed community inside Mississippi to demand – through nonviolent direct action and through passing laws — that an oppressed population of black folk be freed to achieve some measure of political power.

As a result of that arousal, the deaths 50 years ago have made a visible difference. Fifty years ago, a scant few black Mississippians had been allowed to register to vote. As the “Freedom Summer + 50” gathering opened last week, thousands of black Mississippians who are devoted to the Democratic Party intervened in a Republican primary to prevent the nomination and for-sure election of a far-right Tea Party candidate.

In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, no sufficiently powerful outside energy has made the commitment to bring all its lawful, nonviolent power to bear to achieve a two-state peace. So the violence worsens in a downward spiral of injustice.

What the gathering in Mississippi showed was that even when change is still necessary, even when injustice still continues, there can be an upward spiral, growing from past transformations into future ones.

For the gathering at Tougaloo College addressed the future as much as the past. The memory of youthful deaths so many years ago –- we recited their names, we sang their songs, we welcomed their families — became the celebration of youthful courage that had led to serious change. So not only many veterans of 1964 were there, but also many many young activists, come to learn and be inspired.

So we addressed the injustices that persist, and we took up some levels of injustice that fifty years ago were not on anyone’s agenda. Even Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, published in 1962, did not envision a massive disruption of the planetary climate system and the web of life it has nurtured for millions of years.

So there was a confluence of issues almost unimaginable in 1964 when Jacqueline Patterson of the NAACP staff brought together two excellent workshops on ”climate justice.” They were the first climate–action settings I have ever seen in which people of color — Black and Hispanic and Asian and Native — were at least half of those present.

Many spoke of two clear cases in their own region when the fossil-fuel Pharaohs had shattered the lives of poor communities of color even worse than they had damaged prosperous whites:

• How Hurricane Katrina (which was greatly worsened by the oil rigs that chopped up marshy wetlands that used to absorb much of the energy of hurricanes when they hit land) had most damaged the poor folk who were living closer to the river (because houses were cheaper there).
• And how poor folk also were the slowest and still the least served by relief and reconstruction efforts after the BP Oil blow-out in the Gulf.
  

And we learned as well how on a global level the overheating of our planet was hurting and killing the poor even worse than others: How droughts in California, the US corn-belt, central Africa, and Russia had raised the price of staple foods so badly that those who were teetering on the edge in poverty fell into hunger, and those who had been hungry faced starvation. And some who were starving fought civil wars to get their hands on food.

We discussed alternatives for climate activism. Some of us talked about the model of the “Freedom Schools” that emerged in 1964, teaching where the impulses to learn and teach were deeply interwoven with the impulse to heal the world. Those Freedom Schools helped give birth to the Teach-Ins against the Vietnam War that flowered in the spring of ’65.

Could we create new Freedom Schools, new Teach-Ins, to fuse the science of climate and the facts of Corporate Carbon domination with the strategies of change? Was our gathering itself a kind of Freedom School, a Teach-In, with the young and the old teaching each other?

And Freedom Summer inspired co-ops, the redirection of our money from feeding bloated corporate power to nourishing the seeds of a grass-roots economic democracy. In that spirit, I shared The Shalom Center’s campaign to Move Our Money/Protect Our Planet (MOM/POP) and handed out copies of our “Action Handbook” on specific steps for how to Move Our Money. See <https://theshalomcenter.org/treasury/209>

All of us learned more deeply how important it is to recognize and act on the true linkage of what we might call
eco-social justice.

And we learned that what happened fifty years ago in Mississippi sowed the seeds of our ability to recognize and resist new depredations of today. We saw how deeply the nonviolent movement of fifty years before had, even when some of its activists were killed, given continuing birth to nonviolent responses to make more necessary change.

I ended one of those workshops by invoking the spirit of Vincent Harding. If he had not died just a month ago, I said, he would have been deeply pleased by our intergenerational learning, and he would have brought his own deep listening and the quiet with which he surrounded his own wise words.

And most of all, he would have brought his willingness to invest his life in the effort to use nonviolence to expand democracy, to win justice for those who have been oppressed.

And now, in the wake of the news from Palestine and Israel, his ghostly, powerful presence actually reminds me of the Unity of that long effort. For just two summers ago, Brother Vincent took part in a delegation of American Jews and Blacks to visit the occupied West Bank and bring hope to Palestinians committed to nonviolence.

Brother Vincent would have wept over the deaths of the young men of both peoples. As do I.

May the tears we shed become the wellsprings not of revenge but of transformation — as they did in Mississippi.

And may we teach the intertwinement of eco-social justice, learning anew from Freedom Summer’s creativity to go beyond our forebears — as they did.

Shalom, salaam, paz, peace! — Arthur

We — Rabbis, Cantors, and other Jewish spiritual leaders —
call upon Jewish households, congregations, seminaries,
communal and denominational bodies, and other institutions:
Move Our Money to Protect Our Planet.

In the ancient tradition from Sinai, naaseh v’nishma: Let us act, and as we do let us listen and learn.

Let us act:

To Move Our Money and Protect Our Planet, we call on the Jewish community to:

• Move Our Money (household and congregational) away from purchasing oil and coal-based energy and moving instead, wherever possible, to buy energy from wind and solar sources.
• Move Our Money (household and congregational) away from savings and checking accounts in banks that are investing our money in Big Carbon, moving it instead to community banks and credit unions;
• Move Our Money (household, congregational, communal, and denominational) away from actual investments in the stocks and bonds of death-dealing Big Oil, Big Coal, and Big Unnatural Gas, and move it instead to investments in stable, profitable solar and wind-energy companies and in community-based enterprises that help those who suffer from asthma and other diseases caused by Big Carbon;
• Organize our congregants and members to insist that local and state governments similarly Move Our Money – often in large pension funds — from investments in death to investments in life.
• Insist that Congress Move Our Money — money we pay in taxes — away from subsidies to Big Oil, Big Coal, and Big Unnatural Gas, and instead to supporting research, development, and production of life-giving renewable energy.
  

Let us learn:

We are a world people who still bear the wisdom of indigenous farmers and shepherds, meditators and sages, cooks and city planners:

• Our festivals dance with the rhythms of Earth, Moon, and Sun;
• Our Shabbat points the way toward a sustainable rhythm of work and rest;
• Our kashrut points the way toward sacred limits and practices in consuming not only food but other gifts of Mother Earth;
• Our long long history of resistance to the pharaohs that oppress human beings, lift up idols to worship, and bring plagues upon the Earth gives us a reservoir of commitment and clarity in political action.
  

And when as a world/indigenous people we join words and foods in the Pesach Seder, we find twin powerful passages of the Haggadah:

In every generation, some new versions of “pharaoh” arise to endanger us.
In every generation, we ourselves must act to win our freedom from destruction.

In our generation, these Pharaohs are global corporations of Big Carbon that are bringing the Plagues of climate crisis upon all life-forms on Planet Earth — a crisis of a breadth and depth unprecedented in the history of the human species.

And in our generation, we can resist these new pharaohs by moving our money to places where it will serve life and heal our wounded Earth.

Moving from what is deadly to what is life-giving echoes the deepest transformation of our history: In the very process of freeing ourselves from Pharaoh, we learned to shape a new kind of society — Beyond the Red Sea, we moved to Shabbat and Sinai.

Half a century ago, the American Jewish community joined with other religious communities to challenge racism, and together we were crucial in taking a great step toward healing America. Today the Holy One and the Earth need us again to join with other religious, spiritual, and ethical communities to make ourselves a crucial part of the movement to heal our planetary climate.

As Rabbi Akiba taught, facing the dangerous Caesars of his day: “Which is greater, study or action? Study, if it leads to action.” (Kiddushin 40b)

So we — Rabbis, Cantors, other Jewish spiritual leaders, and students in these sacred callings — not only join in this Call but also undertake a campaign to bring this life-giving vision of Torah into the hills and rivers, streets and forests, newspapers and videos, homes and campuses, neighborhoods and synagogues, of our generation.

By April 30, 2014, more than 70 Rabbis and other Jewish spiritual leaders have signed this Call.
The Initiating Signers are below; to see the full list of signers, please click to
<https://theshalomcenter.org/content/rabbinic-call-move-our-money-protect-our-planet >

Now we appeal to all members of the Jewish community to join in this effort. To do so, please click to:
<https://theshalomcenter.org/civicrm/petition/sign?sid=11&reset=1>

Initiating Signers:

Rabbi Katy Allen
Rabbi Phyllis Berman
Spiritual Dir Barbara Breitman
Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin
Rabbi Howard Cohen

Rabbi Elliot Dorff
Rabbi Nancy Flam
Rabbi Everett Gendler
Rabbi Marc Gopin
Rabbi Arthur Green
Rabbi Lori Klein
Rabbi Michael Lerner
Rabbi Mordechai Liebling
Rabbi Jan Salzman
Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi
Kohenet Holly Taya Shere
Rabbi Sidney Schwarz
Rabbi David Shneyer
Rabbi Ariana Silverman
Rabbi Ed Stafman
Rabbi Margot Stein
Rabbi Susan Talve
Rabbi Lawrence Troster
Rabbi Arthur Waskow
Rabbi Sheila Peltz Weinberg
Cantor Greg Yaroslow
Rabbi Shawn Zevit

___ Please add my name as a signer of this Call:
Sign online at <https://theshalomcenter.org/civicrm/petition/sign?sid=11&reset=1>

And the religious and spiritual communities of our planet have the wisdoms and the tools to do the healing.

Judaism is especially relevant because, unlike most world religions, we preserve the teachings of an indigenous people in the biblical tradition –- the spiritual wisdom of shepherds and farmers. And yet as a world people, we can now apply the earthiness of our origins to the Whole Earth.

That does not mean simply repeating the ancient practices. For instance, the ancient code of kosher food does not take into account that we now “eat” coal and oil and crucial minerals like lithium. Is there an “eco-kosher” way of eating them, as well as caring for vegetables and fruit and kosher animals in ways traditional kashrut did not? Can we shape our ways of celebrating Sukkot and Passover and Tu B’Shvat and life-cycle ceremonies so that they embody social action as an aspect of spiritual deepening?

For The Shalom Center, this transformation in our reality calls for action in four aspects of reality:

1. Spiritually, the creation of new forms of prayer meditation, and celebration that draw us into fuller awareness of the interweaving of all life: for instance, “pronouncing” and understanding the Sacred God-Name “YHWH” as YyyyHhhhWwwwHhhh, the Interbreathing of all life – rather than Lord or King. Ruach ha'olam, rather than melech ha'olam.

2. Intellectually, the absorption of ecological science into what we teach and learn as sacred Torah, just as Maimonides integrated the best science and philosophy of his day into Torah. Ecology takes seriously both each distinctive niche of each life form and the flow that connects them. It does what Kabbalah yearns toward: reintegrating the two Trees of Eden — the Tree of Flowing Life and the Tree of Distinction-making — into One.

3. Relationally, our recognition of the varied ethical, religious, and spiritual life-paths as necessary and valuable unfoldings of the varied “organs” of human civilization and planetary life – as different from each other and as equally necessary to each other as the brain, liver, heart, and lungs in a single body. To heal our planet in the present crisis, we will need to draw on the wisdom and commitment of every human culture. So we need to move beyond interfaith dialogue into the pursuit of interrelational work among the different communities.

4. Vigorous action to confront the modern Carbon Pharaohs that are bringing plagues of drought, flood, war, and famine on the Earth and all Humanity – action that might include lobbying, voting, rallies, vigils, nonviolent civil disobedience, organizing counter-institutions like coops, organic farms, etc., and economic action to Move Our Money/Protect Our Planet (MOM/POP) – moving our money from corporate investments and banks that endanger Mother Earth to companies, banks, coops, etc. that protect and heal her.

As we move forward in all these aspects of the world, we create a Judaism that heals and transforms itself in order to heal and transform the world. We learn anew what ancient Torah teaches: – “Sh’sh’sh’shma! Hush’sh’sh’sh and Hear, all you who wrestle with the Ultimate — Hear the still small sound of almost-silent breathing: the Breath of Life is ONE

Climate change resulting from the use of fossil fuels poses a well-documented, grave threat to humanity and the ecosystems that support life. But in the United States, a real national response to climate change has been stymied by political inaction, cultural inertia, and the concerted effort of fossil fuel companies, which have funded propaganda and disinformation in opposition to limits on greenhouse gas emissions. Increasingly, environmental organizations have resorted to various actions meant to break this deadlock. One of these tactics is encouraging divestment from fossil fuel companies. 350.org, a leading climate advocacy group, has launched a nationwide campaign called Go Fossil Free (http://gofossilfree.org) which seeks to have institutions (like colleges, pension funds, cities, religious organizations) divest their stock holdings from fossil fuel companies.

GreenFaith (http://greenfaith.org/programs/divest-and-reinvest) is launching an effort to address these issues in a specifically religious context. With long ties to the Jewish community, GreenFaith is well aware that many Jews are very uncomfortable with the use of the term "divestment" because of its association with the BDS movement (Boycott, Divest and Sanctions) against the State of Israel. Even though Jewish organizations were in the forefront of previous divestment campaigns against South Africa for apartheid, Sudan for Darfur and even against companies that cut down old growth forests, today "divestment" is such a divisive word that its use in many Jewish circles would likely doom any associated effort from the start.

Ethical Investing and Traditional Jewish Ethics

However, the principle of ethical investing is already part of Jewish discourse and is part of traditional Jewish ethics. It is imperative that Jewish communities address the morality of investing in fossil fuel companies, whose fundamental operations imperil humanity and functional ecosystems. Even if it may not be possible to have a completely ethically pure investment portfolio, we should strive to have our investments reflect our Jewish values as much as possible.

There are sufficient Jewish sources to warrant our examining this complex issue. Two

particular issues bear closer examining.

• How does Judaism guide us to address products (like tobacco and fossil fuel) that are not illegal but are, clearly, harmful?
• To what degree is a shareholder morally responsible for the actions of a corporation in which they may have only a small share (or even more indirectly through shares in a mutual fund) which does not allow them to exercise any control on the actions of the company. Does this issue of indirect ownership distance us ethically from the actions of the corporation?

The following are Jewish teachings that address these questions and related issues.

The Theological Foundations of an Ethical Response

Ethics and Property Cannot be Separated

In Judaism one of the most fundamental concepts is that God created the universe and therefore one of its implications is that only God has absolute ownership over Creation (Gen. 1-2, Psalm 24:1, I Chron. 29:10-16). As such, humans do not have unrestricted freedom to misuse Creation, as it does not belong to them. We are in fact tenants and not owners. Since our ownership of any part of Creation is not absolute, we cannot divorce our use of our property from morality. Just because a product which we can purchase, own and use is legal does not make its use ethi

Creation's Structure and Order Serve God and Demand our Respect

Secondly, Creation is sufficient, structured, ordered, and harmonious (the rabbis called it Seder Bereshit, the Order of Creation). It exists to serve God (Psalm 148), and reflects God's wisdom (Psalm 104:24, Proverbs 3:19-20, 8:22-31). All of God's creations are part of this order, including humans.

Humanity as God's Agents

Thirdly, humans have a special place and role in the Order of Creation expressed in the concept of them being created in God's image, tzelem elohim (Genesis 1:28, Psalm 8). In its original sense, tzelem elohim means that humans are God's agents meant to actualize God's presence in Creation through godlike characteristics given to them, especially power over the other members of the created Order. Human beings are supposed to exercise this power to be wise stewards of Creation even as they are allowed to use it for their own benefit within the limits established by God (Genesis 2:14). This need for stewardship applies both to human society as well to the natural world.

Tzedek

Lastly, the concept of proper balance is expressed by the term tzedek, which means righteousness, justice and equity. The rules of tzedek, try to correct the imbalances, which humans create in society and in the natural world. The Torah has numerous laws which are concrete expressions of tzedek, which attempt to redress the power and economic imbalances in human society and Creation. (E.g. Exodus 22:24-26, Leviticus 25:36-37, Deuteronomy 23:20-1, 24:6, 10-13, 17). (For a more complete survey of these principles see http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-lawrence-troster/10-teachings-on-judaism-a_b_844973.html)

Ethical principles and Their Legal Expressions

Judaism sees a need for justice/equity in all aspects of life which include government and economic activity. As such there is no separation of ownership and liability. It has been long recognized in Jewish law that investments make us property owners. In Judaism, property owners have rights but also many responsibilities about how they utilize their property. These responsibilities include not only preventing immediate harm from occurring to others but also potential harm.

Jewish Ethics on the Responsibility of Shareholders

While biblical and classic rabbinic sources about property owners' responsibilities usually deal with single owners or small partnerships, for the last 500 years when stock markets and shareholder-owned corporations (like the Dutch East India Company in 1602) began to proliferate, Jewish religious authorities began to address the issue of shareholder responsibility.

Since a corporation – "a legally constructed entity which is independent of the people who own it," (D.B. Bressler, "Ethical Investment: The Responsibility of Ownership in Jewish Law, in: Aaron Levine & Moses Pava, editors, Jewish Business Ethics: The Firm and Its Stakeholders,1999, p. 179) – is created to limit the liability of its shareholders, it became a matter of great discussion as to who is or are the owner(s) of the corporations and are therefore subject to the classical rules of ownership responsibility. The problem lay in the issue of corporate control. Since most shareholders do not have power over the company's actions or policies and are therefore not "owners" in the classic sense – they cannot be held morally responsible for its actions. In recent years, the creation of investment vehicles such as mutual funds has further weakened the traditional sense of ownership.

One way that ethicists deal with this weakening of traditional ownership roles is to hold directors and executives morally responsible for a company's actions. But while some ethicists asserted that shareholders did not bear ownership responsibility, another opinion also emerged. Because collective shareholder action can cause a change in a corporation's policies, it has argued that all shareholders (even those in mutual funds) must be considered owners and therefore subject to ethical responsibility. (Mordechai Liebling, "The Jewish Basis for Shareholder Activism, The Reconstructionist, 69:2, Spring, 2005, p. 33-4

Ethical Responsibilities of Property Owners

If we accept that there is some ownership dimension to shareholding, then it follows that we should explore the ethical responsibilities of property owners, and consider how these relate to the issue of fossil fuel companies.

The classic ethical responsibilities of a property owner include not making a profit from prohibited activities such as theft or causing harm to another person's health. Even though the production of energy from oil, coal, and gas are not illegal (as in tobacco) it could be considered immoral from a Jewish activity because of the immediate damage it causes to Creation and human health. One is also prohibited from the harmful use of one's assets by others.

But our ethical responsibility extends even further. The general principle of the obligation to save and preserve life is called in Jewish legal sources, <em>pikuah nefesh</em> (see Leviticus 18:5 and its rabbinic interpretation in Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 74a). The extension of this principle forbids us from knowingly harming ourselves (Leviticus 19:28), mandates the proper disposal of waste and that noxious products from industrial production must be kept far from human habitation (see for example, Deuteronomy 23:13-15, Mishnah <em>Baba Batra</em> 2:9). The law of the parapet (Deuteronomy 22:8) is also used as an example of a general principle which requires us to prevent potential harm not only immediate harm (Moses Maimonides, Mishnah Torah, Laws of Murder, 11:4).

One of the most relevant principles to shareholder responsibility is the application of the law in Leviticus 19:14: not putting a stumbling block before the blind. This law was not only to be taken literally but since ancient times also understood as a moral principle: not intentionally giving bad advice to someone and not to assist someone in a wrongdoing. Maimonides used this principle to forbid the sale of weapons to people who may use them for violence or robbery (Mishnah Torah, Laws of Murder, 12:12, 14). Some would utilize this principle to apply to investments; others see a more limited applicability. (See Liebling, p. 33 & Bressler, p. 185-190)

Beyond the Letter of the Law

Even if we were to accept only the limited view of shareholder responsibility and say that investing in carbon-based energy companies does not strictly violate Jewish law, there is another important principle which would call upon us to act. The principle is called Lifnim m'shurat ha-din, "[going] beyond the letter of the law." It is based primarily on Deuteronomy 6:18 (but also by some interpretations on Leviticus 19:2) which says: Do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord. As Elliot Dorff has pointed out:

…Jewish law itself recognizes that justice sometimes demands more than the law does, that moral duties sometimes require reshaping the law itself so that in each new age it can continue to be the best approximation of justice. (Elliot Dorff, To Do the Right and the Good: A Jewish Approach to Modern Social Ethics, 2002, p. 118)

Therefore, even if we can claim that our investments are technically not immoral, the Jewish tradition calls upon us to go beyond technicalities and act in a higher moral capacity. We must not only act legally but also act right.

Final Thoughts

The philosopher Hans Jonas showed that one of the central problems in dealing with the environmental crisis was the inability of classical ethics to deal with issues that are distant in time and space. In pre-modern times one's ethical relationships were with people who were physically and temporally close. Our actions today, through the power of modern technology, have an impact on people and non-human life that may be on the other side of world and distant from us in time. Jonas says that we must create a new ethics of responsibility in response. (Hans Jonas, The Imperative of Responsibility: In Search of an Ethics for the Technological Age, 1984, p. ix-x, 1-24) The carbon we emit today will remain in the atmosphere for about a hundred years and future generations will be dealing with the results of climate change. More than ever, we must seek to reduce the ethical distance between our actions and their impact. One way we can do this is through the ethical investing in sustainable energy and divesting from carbon-based energy companies.

Lastly, there is a moral imperative not only to act but to speak out. A rabbinic text says:

All who can protest against [something wrong that] one of their family [is doing] and does not protest, is held accountable for their family.[All who can protest against something wrong that] a citizen of their city [is doing and does not protest], is held accountable for all citizens of the city.[All who can protest against something wrong that is being done] in the whole world, is accountable together with all citizens of the world. (Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 54b)

(This originally appeared at: http://greenfaith.org/programs/divest-and-reinvest/religious-and-moral-resources-on-divestment-and-reinvestment)

I wish that I had learned how to appreciate meditation and yoga when I was younger, I wish I hadn’t eaten countless slices of processed cheese in individual plastic wrappers, and wish I knew that when I invested my hard earned dollars on a new mattress for my apartment, I was investing in the flame retardant industry and harming my health. Although I was absolutely horrified to find out the dangers of each of these things and more, hindsight screams “HOW did you not know that?” But, the key is, that once I knew, I decided to no longer UNKNOW and made the conscious decision to change…relentlessly. It is too bad that we can’t have do-overs once we learn, grow and know. However, one thing that we CAN do, is to simply keep moving forward and actually use what we learn, when we learn it, to improve (like when I learned what really went into hot dogs– never again purchased or eaten!).

There are many reasons that we shop, eat, and live without a conscience – perhaps it’s the fear of change, maybe it’s about the cost of change, it could even be that we are overwhelmed with the thought of how much we need to change and do not know where to start, and maybe we don’t even really know some of the things that we need to be outraged about. The sin of unknowing affects us all, and one of the best ways that we can repair the world, and take care of each other is to continue to educate and inspire…and if we listen to each other, and act on what we know, and share it widely and kindly, imagine what a better life we can lead now, plus how it might benefit our future generations.

It’s not denial. I’m just selective about the reality I accept. ~ Bill Watterson

On Rosh Hashanah, we celebrate the New Year and give thanks for the creation of our world. We dedicate time to family and friends and we reflect on our past year and celebrate the start of the new year. It's the perfect time to make new goals for the year ahead and try to do better for yourself, your family, and our world.

Shopping for the holidays
Be eco-"logical" about planning your family gatherings right from the get-go. Shopping locally for an organic Rosh Hashanah meal, apples and honey will not only help support your neighbours and community, but you will also serve kind, chemical and pesticide-free food. And don't forget, shopping tools can be as important as the food itself. What a shame it is to carry home glorious food in a toxic throwaway.

Tote the right thing
Plastic bags are a thing of the past, but if you're toting a 99 cent reusable, you could be doing more harm than good. Non-woven polypropylene reusable bags are made from the same stuff as disposable plastic bags — petroleum (ick!) and have been found to have high levels of lead. It's time to carry on (literally!). Arm yourself with a bag that will last you all of your shopping to come. Try a fair-trade bag that is lab-tested, lead-free and is washable.

Dress your table
In Judaism, the colour white signifies transformation and purity. We strive to ensure that everything is clean, neat and sparkly and we traditionally dress our tables with a white tablecloth and white napkins. In keeping with the tradition, lose the chlorine bleach and adopt safe and responsible practices. Rosh Hashanah is a sacred holiday, so make sure your personal and shared environment is safe for your loved ones, and our planet.

Hands off!
Is it worth wearing gloves and feeling like you might pass out just to have shiny happy silver? Harmful silver polish has danger warnings about inhaling it or touching your skin. Do you want that hazard on your soup spoon? I would advise cleaning your silver with natural toothpaste or putting it in a sink with aluminum foil on the bottom — just add warm water and salt. Same sparkly results, but fume and residue-free. Take a whiff of that!

Table toppers
When you pull out the "good stuff" for the holidays, make sure it's actually, truly good for you. I believe that napkins and tablecloths that are vinyl, backed with plastic or even cotton, treated with chemicals (you know the ones that claim they are stain-proof or wrinkle-resistant?), should absolutely be avoided. Some consider cotton to be the world's 'dirtiest' crop due to its heavy use of insecticides. Choose natural linens like organic cotton, but regardless of your choice, please make sure they are reusable.

Pure and fresh
Some cut flowers are heavily sprayed with pesticides, fungicides and herbicides (with toxins that are banned in fields in Canada!). Then they are wrapped in plastic. We thought flowers were supposed to signify beauty and purity?! Don't fret, source local — you'll be surprised what's growing in your own backyard.

Prepare the meal
Since you've already gone out of your way to shop the local farmers' market, purchased your organic eats, and unpacked everything from your wonderful reusable bags, it's now time to cook smart so you don't undo all the good you've done! Think about your cooking method (this includes what you're cooking with, and on) before you begin your preparations. Be efficient and plan ahead — it will save you money, time (and energy, too) which only means you will have a few extra minutes to share with your loved ones on Rosh Hashanah.

Back to earth
Taking the time to compost your scraps instead of throwing them in the garbage diverts huge amounts of waste from our landfills and also helps make our gardens grow by giving it soil rich nutrients. Composting also reduces methane production, a very potent greenhouse gas that is released into our air from landfills. Stainless steel composters won't take on the smell (or colour) of your food scraps and it's nice enough to sit on your countertop. How's that for accessorizing?

Food for thought
Your food comes into contact with a lot, so choose kitchen stuff wisely. Cast iron, stainless steel, lead-free clay and glass are my ultimate choices for bakeware and cookware. I believe you should say no to non-stick (ick), and keep serveware and storage-ware glaze-free (lead and other stuff) and plastic-free (BPA and phthalates). I like glass best because it's safe and easy to store your leftovers in and to pop in the oven for reheating.

Bless all around
Tikkun 'olam, meaning perfecting or repairing of the world, is a major theme in modern Jewish social justice theology. It must be carried out by humans in partnership with God, and it is an important concept in environmentalism. It is said, that our ignorance and our poor choices have damaged the world. The good news (in my opinion), is that this problem can be fixed by switching out bad habits for healthier and smarter ones. As you recite the blessings on Rosh Hashanah, let each be a reminder to take care of our world, and all that constantly gives and takes care of us.

Pure brilliance
While you may think conventional candles serve a purpose, are beautiful to look at, and provide a sense of warmth and comfort to your home, you could be endangering yourself. When we burn paraffin candles, carcinogens fill the room with toxins that coat your walls, furniture, and lungs. Bring pure brilliance to your table and bless candles made from organic beeswax (the purest and most natural of all waxes — they glow, and clean your air, too).

Fruits of the earth
The blessing over the wine (or grape juice for those underage) is about acknowledging the fruits of the earth — so let's make sure that's exactly what we are drinking — pure fruit without pesticides and additives. Research has found that there is at least one form of pesticide found in every conventional bottle of wine, but some wines can have up to 10 different ones.

Clean it up
Now for the dirty talk… Whether you are tidying before the holidays, or on cleaning duty afterwards, you want your home to be truly clean. Studies show the average Canadian family consumes anywhere from 20 to 40 litres of toxic cleaning products each year (oy!). You can easily make safe and smart cleaning products using ingredients you can find in your own kitchen — and you won't have to sacrifice cleanliness (or your health!).

Dirty laundry
You've spent the time purchasing organic cotton linens to dress your Rosh Hashanah table, so it doesn't make sense to toss them in the wash with conventional detergent where they would swim in chemicals. Fabric softeners, dryer sheets and even dryer balls made from PVC should be avoided as they could contain some not-so-snuggly ingredients that are taking a toll on our health and our planet. Although these products are marketed to make us believe that the warm fuzzy bunnies, teddy bears, or babies are safe and comforting, we often overlook the fine print telling us that they might contain hazardous chemicals.

Rosh Hashanah is the perfect time to open up to new possibilities and be grateful for everything we have. More than anything, Rosh Hashanah offers the opportunity to turn inward, and ask ourselves, about the impact our actions have on our friends and family, our communities, and on the earth.

Welcome a fresh start and have a safe, happy, and healthy new year!

Download and share a free electronic version of the Eco Shabbat Guide, curated, written, and designed by the team at Borden Communications.

It can be difficult to find eco-friendly fabrics. Many clothes are made from petroleum based fabrics, such as polyester. Even natural fabrics are grown or treated with major amounts of pesticides and chemicals that aren’t good for the environment. When possible, look for organic cotton. While they aren’t yet widely available, you can also try to find clothes with labels certifying the clothing as fair trade or environmentally friendly, such as Fair Trade Certified, GOTS – The Global Organic Textile Standard, and Oeko Tex 100 certified.

Since it’s difficult to find eco-friendly clothes, try to reduce the amount of new clothing that you buy. At the time of purchase, consider whether the article will last for you. Some trendier items will clearly be discarded after a short time. Consider trying to buy styles that will be suited for a longer lifespan. Be sure that you really like the clothing you buy so that you don’t end up with a closet full of items that have only been worn a few times. Also, keep your closet organized, so that you don’t buy more of something that you already have.

Consider alterations or re-purposing for items that no longer fit or that have gone out of style. Try a re-weaving company, such as Denim Therapy, to mend the holes in your jeans.

When it’s time to buy new clothes, consider e-bay and vintage or re-sale shops. These are especially helpful for children’s clothes, since childrenoften grow faster than the time it takes to show much wear on their clothes. Another way to recycle is to have a clothing swap with friends or colleagues, such as members of your book club, yoga class or members of an organization you belong to.

You should also consider the impact of cleaning your clothes. Dry cleaning uses many chemicals so you should try to buy clothes that don’t need to be dry cleaned. For those that do need dry cleaning, try to let them breathe on a hanger for 24 hours before stuffing them back on the rod between other clothes. Airing your clothes will significantly reduce the need for dry cleaning, which is good for the environment and for your wallet. When you wash clothes, aim for cooler water and cooler drying temperature, when possible. Laying out some of your items to dry helps the environment and keeps your clothes looking nice longer.

And remember to donate your used clothes to clothing drives or to charitable re-sale shops. You will be helping others, as well as keeping items out of landfills.

Originally posted on jewishinstlouis.org at http://www.jewishinstlouis.org/blog_post.aspx?id=5452

Consider the source of the food: Try to patronize restaurants that use organic, local, and seasonal products.

Consider that much of the food ordered in restaurants is wasted. Think about how much you really will eat before you order. You might also inquire about the kind of packaging used for take-home containers before ordering or bring your own reusable container to the restaurant to package your extra food.

Avoid restaurants that use lots of wrapping, packaging, disposables, and Styrofoam.

Whenever possible, order tap water instead of bottled water.

Consider eco-friendly travel to the restaurant. Can you walk or ride your bike?

There are currently 5 restaurants in the St. Louis area that have received Green Certification from the Green Restaurant Association. The GRA considers such things as water and energy efficiency, disposables, waste reduction and recycling, and sustainable food and furnishings. To find these restaurants, go to www.dinegreen.com.

Many restaurants have comment cards. Consider suggesting that the restaurant engage in eco-friendly practices. Many restaurants find that they can reduce costs when they manage energy and reduce waste and many diners are glad to know that they are supporting a restaurant that cares about the environment.

Originally posted in jewishinstlouis.org at http://www.jewishinstlouis.org/blog_post.aspx?id=5594

Comments

1. Bathtub cleaner.

Recipe

2 cups baking soda

2 tsp liquid dish soap

2 tsp vinegar

Add a small amount of water, just enough to make a soft paste.

Directions: Use a sponge to apply the paste to the walls of your ceramic or fiberglass bathtub. Leave the paste on overnight. Rinse it off, and dirt is gone!

2. Hardwood Floor Cleaner/Polish -

1 gallon hot water

1/2 cup olive oil

1/3 cup lemon juice

Mix ingredients in a large pail. Use a squeegy mop, squeezing out as much liquid as possible before mopping wood floor. Let dry.

• NOW IN ENGLISH: The 36-page translation of the KKL-JNF report.
• The 34-page Hebrew-language KKL-JNF report.
• Letter from Dr. Orr Karassin of the Green Zionist Alliance to the Ministry of Energy and Water (in Hebrew).
• More resources on fracking in Israel.
• Help support the work of the Green Zionist Alliance.
  

Cross-posted from GreenZionism.org

The Washington Post reported that “The two-year, $109 billion transportation bill before the Senate has wide, bipartisan support, but has become a magnet for lawmakers’ favorite causes and partisan gamesmanship. Among the amendments batted aside were GOP proposals to bypass Obama’s concerns about the Keystone XL oil pipeline, to delay tougher air pollution standards for industrial boilers and to expand offshore oil drilling….Also defeated was an amendment by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, which would have forced the Environmental Protection Agency to rewrite a rule requiring boiler operators to install modern emissions controls. Boilers are the second-largest source of toxic mercury emissions after coal-fired power plants. Collins said the EPA’s rule would drive some manufacturers out of business. And the Senate turned down an amendment to expand offshore oil drilling even though its sponsor, Sen. David Vitter, D-La., contended it would increase domestic energy supplies and reduce gas prices…The transportation bill itself would overhaul federal transportation programs, including boosting aid to highway and transit programs, streamline some environmental regulations in order to speed up approval of projects and consolidate dozens of programs.”

Now I am not unsympathetic or ignorant to business and economic related issues. I fully understand the impact that environmental regulations and governmental decisions related to energy exploration and development can have on certain industries. However, this type of argument is simply stale because if the government relented every time this argument was made, there would be no environmental regulations. Although, yes Ms. Snowe, I feel bad that some manufacturers will go out of business, I am even more concerned about the mercury contamination and subsequent health implications to communities surrounding these plants that have not installed modern emissions controls. Further, while I understand that building a new pipeline from Canada to the Gulf would create some jobs, the benefits remain unclear. As Johnathan Alter wrote recently in Bloomberg,

“TransCanada underwrote a study by an outfit called the Perryman Group claiming that Keystone XL will create 119,000 total jobs. But according to a report by the Cornell Global Labor Institute, the Perryman study is bogus. It included the vaguely calculated multiplier effects of $1 billion spent for a section of the pipeline in Kansas and Oklahoma that has already been built and isn’t part of the controversial extension. The temporary construction and manufacturing jobs created by the project over two years — estimates range from 2,500 to 20,000, depending on how much of the money is spent in the U.S. — would be welcome, but by themselves they hardly justify approval of the whole thing.”

Alter also claims that the pipeline could lead to a huge increase in oil prices, as opposed to the claim being made by proponents that it will substantially decrease prices (read the full article here:http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-02/keystone-pipe-brings-pain-at-pump-few-jobs-commentary-by-jonathan-alter.html ) .

While I fully understand oil and gas remain critical in terms of the present economy, the absolute lack of discussion and leadership related to renewable energy, or the presentation of new ideas to move us towards a more sustainable energy future, is simply depressing (but not so shocking). If the best we can do is Obama’s hybrid credit (http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/obama-alternative-fuel-cars/2012/03/08/id/431816) which although positive feels like I am living in 2008, then we are in serious trouble.

Please note: JEI does not vouch for any particular rental site listed in this blog. It is suggested that you engage in due diligence with respect to any online provider, such as asking for recommendations and checking with the Better Business Bureau before using a site.

Camping equipment: Unless you are an avid camper, chances are you don’t need to buy expensive equipment that will sit in your basement most of the year. Consider renting items such as tents, backpacks and insulated low-temperature sleeping bags. REI is one retailer that rents out equipment. You can find out more about what items are available for rental near where you live at http://www.rei.com/stores/rentals.html.

Handbags: If you need a fancy handbag for a special occasion, consider renting one for a week. There are several sites that offer a range of bags at a variety of prices to suit your needs and budget. A few companies to look into are www.bagborroworsteal.com (which also offers a range of insurance plans for your rental), www.frombagstoriches.com and www.rentmeahandbag.com . Some of these services do charge a monthly fee or a registration fee, so check websites carefully.

Toys: Because children often lose interest in that new toy after the novelty wears off, renting toys for a limited time can be appealing. There are several companies that offer toy rental options. If you are going this route, make sure that the company you use guarantees the cleanliness of whatever it rents and has a reasonable policy if a toy breaks. Some companies even offer a rent to own option, so that if you rent a toy that becomes a favorite your child doesn’t have to part with it. Sites to check out include http://babyplays.com, www.toygaroo.com and http://mybusybucket.com.

Next time you need an item that you doubt you will be using long-term or that will be outgrown, ask around or do a web search and see if it is available on a rental basis. There may be more options than you think.


This blog originally appeared on jewishinstlouis.org at http://www.jewishinstlouis.org/blog.aspx?id=345

Comments

We are now in “sphirat ha-omer,” the count-up to Shavuot—the time of the giving of our Torah.

Our study and transmission of our Written and Oral Laws ("Torah Shebichtav" and "Torah Sheba'al Peh," respectively) has benefitted from technological advancement. We are known as the “People of the Book”—five books of Moses, 24 books of Tanakh, countless written commentaries—but many are beginning to find the content of these books moving from paper to electronic form, soon making us “People of the PDF”.

Historically, Jews have written and accessed their Judaic texts in a physical form. For example, klaf (parchment made from the skin of a kosher animal) is the required medium for Torah Scrolls. As written media developed—papyrus, cloth, vellum and paper—Jews began utilizing those media to write commentaries or carry their own personal copy of such books. With the advent of modern technologies, many Jews now use an electronic tablet or smartphone to access prayers or daily study sessions during the week. Mishna Brurah? There’s an App for that.

We are increasingly living our lives—both Jewish and Secular—through our electronic devices. At first thought, it seems that relying on an electronic copy of a book may be the more “eco-friendly” or “green” solution. The production of paper uses many natural resources—water, wood, glue, energy—and the medium itself has a limited capacity—only so many words can fit in one book. Electronic devices, alternatively, have a seemingly infinite capacity to store information and the files stored on such devices and relatively cheap reproduce. However, the manufacture, use and disposal of electronic devices and the hard drives that are used to save and record content can have a significant energy consumption footprint: no matter which medium one prefers, the issue of sustainable energy and resource consumption is always at play.

For many reasons—Shabbat observance, ease of access, personal preference—many of us will continue to read and collect paper versions of our favourite books and seforim. From a sustainability perspective, there remains a role for paper, as a biodegradable, renewable, sustainable product made from trees.

In order to minimize impact on the environment, the paper used by a publisher to print books, reports and documents should come from sources which themselves have already been recycled, thus minimizing the impact on existing forest stock. If any of these publications contain holy words, they cannot be recycled, only buried, following the principals of “shaimos” or “genizah” which require that such books be stored and properly buried to allow for natural decomposition.

Jewish organizations such as schools, social service and fundraising agencies that use paper based communications and do not print holy words avoid the need for the documents to be buried. They have both the choice of paper to be used, and the opportunity to recycle the paper after use.

Next month, as we get closer to Shavuot, we will explore the lifecycle of paper and the options and impacts of the paper we choose to use as the “People of the Book”.

winegust@gmail.com

What role should a synagogue play in helping its members live a more sustainable existence? Should a synagogue lead by example or just respond to the requirements of their boards and their members. Are we dealing with a business decision or a spiritual imperative?

Rabbi Voss-Altman of Temple B’nai Tikvah in Calgary was one of the first in the Canadian Reform movement to dedicate one of his Shabbat talks to putting a green spin on Parshat Noach. His talk focused on the responsibility mankind was given to have stewardship over the earth and to take care of the planet. The Reform movement has even dedicated time and resources to helping its congregations become more sustainable. [http://bit.ly/tsj1102-01]

The rabbi brought an interesting proposition to his congregation in 2007 after visiting the local Ikea, and finding out that it was powered by renewable energy from southern Alberta wind farms. The synagogue board agreed to the spiritual value of renewable energy and agreed to pay the premium for this power once the Rabbi secured a synagogue member willing to sponsor the effort. The Rabbi succeeded in finding a member connected with the oil industry, willing to be that sponsor. Today, the Temple is “Bullfrog Powered” and draws renewable energy from the Alberta power grid. [http://bit.ly/tsj1102-02]

Alan Levine and Michael Charendoff of the Reconstructionist Egalitarian Congregation Darchei Noam, recently took me on a tour of their building on Sheppard west of Wilmington. The former Adath Shalom Congregation building was bought by Darchei Noam in 2004 and was re-skinned with a new exterior and a third floor addition and reopened in January 2008.

Various congregational committees were involved in the selection of heating, cooling, and water systems, ensuring the building could operate in an environmentally respectful way. Sustainable materials were chosen to create a comfortable and inviting interior, minimizing environment impact.

Today, the congregation reduces its overall energy costs by selling electricity from 22 roof mounted solar panels back to the Ontario power grid. The energy consumption of the building, when normalized by square footage is significantly less than other institutional buildings. [http://bit.ly/tsj1102-03]

In Ontario, electricity rates are expected to increase by 46% in the next 5 years, independent of pre-election 10% rebates. Very shortly, time of use charging will extend from residential homes to institutional buildings such as synagogues and communal organizations funded by the UJA Federation.

Are lower 5 year fixed electricity rates being offered to these institutions really as attractive once you map energy consumption to the time it is consumed? Once you add the Global Adjustment cost into proposals currently in front of these institutions, do the expected savings still remain? [http://bit.ly/tsj1102-04]

“We believe that communal organizations should focus their budgets on providing services to their constituents. More funds are available for the Jewish mission when operational cost savings around energy consumption are put in place. ”, says Gary Siepser , Senior Vice President, UJA Federation of Greater Toronto. “Organizations need to benchmark building energy consumption and make it visible to drive improvements. We are aware of energy efficiency efforts currently underway and will be calling together representatives of our stakeholder community to share best practices, identify programs and methodologies they can leverage and help them avoid known pitfalls”.

This month marks the end of the 10th anniversary of the Green Zionist Alliance. Back before Israel’s Tent Cities and Occupy Wall Street, the Green Zionist Alliance began 2011 by becoming part of a successful effort to change the equation of what percentage of natural-resource profits goes to companies and what percentage goes to the Israeli public, who collectively own the resources. Fighting against some of the largest oil and gas companies in the world, the Green Zionist Alliance and its allies pushed a new law through Knesset that will put billions of dollars into education, healthcare and environmental protection — money that, without our intervention, simply would have gone to multinational corporations.

We followed that up with another David-versus-Goliath fight: Stopping hydrofracking in the Elah Valley, the historical battlefield of the original David and Goliath. We convened a Keren Kayemet L’Yisrael / Jewish National Fund (KKL-JNF) committee to investigate the potential impact of hydrofracking in Israel. The committee’s 34-page report, which has since become the official policy of KKL-JNF, called for a dozen research questions to be answered through laboratory work before fracking should be allowed in Israel. In the meantime, the issue of fracking is on the docket of the Israeli Supreme Court and it’s anticipated that the GZA’s KKL-JNF report will weigh heavily on the court.

We also helped launch a new grassroots network, Jews Against Hydrofracking, so that we could fight fracking in America as well as in Israel.

Just a few weeks ago, the Green Zionist Alliance’s representatives on the board of KKL-JNF intervened in KKL-JNF’s eviction proceedings of a Palestinian family from their Jerusalem home. We were successful in getting a delay of the eviction; we’ll keep working on protecting them and other disenfranchised voices. This follows our efforts to prevent a Bedouin village from being razed so a forest could be planted in its stead. If you read the minutes of the KKL-JNF board meeting that discussed the Bedouin, as published in Haaretz, you’ll see that the GZA representatives — Dr. Alon Tal and Dr. Orr Karassin — are the board’s only voices of reason on this issue.

And in May we launched a campaign to save the Samar sand dunes from destruction. A unique ecosystem of endangered species located in Israel’s Arava Valley, the remaining dunes of Samar were scheduled to be razed in October. Thanks to the efforts of the Green Zionist Alliance and our partner organizations in Israel, the dunes have been granted a temporary reprieve and they are still standing today.

Over the past 11 years, the Green Zionist Alliance has passed a multitude of laws at the World Zionist Congress, mandating the development of community gardens at immigrant-housing centers; support for sustainable, organic and local agriculture; and installation of photovoltaic solar panels and rainwater-savings systems. We also quadrupled funding for afforestation in Israel, developed environmental programs for Rwandan villages and declared new nature reserves in Israel. The Trans-Israel Bike Trail and the Kinneret Circumference Trail were built because of our work, and every year new bike trails are built and expanded in Israel because of the Green Zionist Alliance. At the same time, we’ve held educational programs and conferences coast to coast across North America.

But the GZA is only able to green Israel with your support.

Think of the Green Zionist Alliance as your way of changing Israeli environmental policy. As individuals, none of us may be able to have much impact; but joining together as an alliance, we become a force of nature. And the more support that you can provide, the stronger our collective force will become.

We have accomplished a lot in our first decade, but we still have a lot more to do. Please make your tax-deductible donation to the Green Zionist Alliance and help green Israel today.

Cross-posted from GreenZionism.org

You would hardly know that in Durban, many of 194 party members of the United Nations Framework for Climate Change are meeting for the 17th COP (Conference of the Parties) to continue to explore how to save the planet from itself.

This is the group that brought us the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 which sought to limit the amount of greenhouse gases the world emits. The UNFCCC has posted videos of key presentations and links to various reports. And more are coming.

In concert with this annual event, four environmentally-concerned organizations have issued their own Bankrolling Climate Change report, which studies the coal-heavy investments of many of the world's leading banking institutions.

Truth be told, it makes only the tiniest difference if your bank says it is "green" as it saves millions of pieces of paper (and millions of dollars) through on-line banking services if it still invests billions in dirty, destructive, dislocating coal-mining practices that destroy millions of acres of trees, foul the air with coal ash, force abandonment and relocation of tens of thousands and continue to spew CO2 into the atmosphere instead of investing in the next generation of essential life-sustaining energy.

This study is chock full of frightening information, such as, if China alone continues on its present pace of increasing the mining and burning of coal, by 2030 it will be spewing out as much CO2 emissions into the atmosphere as the whole world is doing now.

The report is a call to investors like you and me around the world to hold our banks to account.

Find out if your bank is one of the main investors in continuing to promote this fatal technology. And if it is, put your money where your mouth is.

Following as many of these steps as you can will help reduce your energy bills, will help the environment, and will help reduce waste, furthering the Jewish principle of bal tashchit.

• One of the simplest ways you can save energy is by lowering your thermostat in the winter and raising it in the summer. Even one degree will make a difference. Also, programmable thermostats allow you to adjust for different temperatures when you are asleep or away. Adjust your thermostat to a slightly lower setting in the winter when you are at home and to an even lower setting when you are out and you will save, on average, up to $170 each winter.

• Surprisingly, your appliances use a large amount of energy when they are plugged in, even if they are turned off. A large screen TV uses almost as much energy turned off and plugged in as it does turned on. Plug your appliances into a power strip (or even better, a smart strip). Turn the power strip off when the appliances are not in use. You will see a marked reduction in your electric bills.

• Decrease the energy waste in your home by caulking and sealing gaps as well as focusing on your home’s insulation to reduce the leakage of hot or cold air out of your house. Weatherstrip your doors, including the basement door.

• CFL bulbs are much more energy efficient than incandescent bulbs. Begin by replacing the bulbs that are used the most.

• Consider upgrading your heating and cooling systems to make them more energy efficient, especially if your current systems are old. Energy efficient systems reduce your energy costs significantly. A geothermal heat pump can eliminate 80% of your heating costs in the winter, and 50% of your cooling costs in the summer.

• There are significant tax credits that give you cash back just for putting certain green systems in your home. Ask your accountant and/or the company that puts in your new system for information about the rebate and tax credit programs available. There also may be ways to get very low interest loans for some of these improvements. If you live in St. Louis County, go to www.stlouiscountysaves.com for information on programs to help finance energy saving projects.

Originally posted on jewishinstlouis.org Planet Jewish blog at http://www.jewishinstlouis.org/blog.aspx?id=345

In monoculture, most iconically pictured in a dense stand of identical, chemically fertilized corn stalks, modern techniques of mechanization and chemical pest control are employed to make single commodity production as ‘efficient’ as possible. In reality that efficiency is only possible through the use of fossil fuels, to power the combines that have replaced human hands, and to be converted into chemical fertilizer that has replaced living soil. Every aspect of the plant’s life-cycle is isolated and controlled.

Forest gardening does not isolate, it invites. On Sukkot, we invite ushpizin, exalted guests, into our dwelling place. According to the Lurianic Kabbalists, each of the teacher/ancestors we ask to sit with us in our Sukkah represents one of the seven ‘lower’ sefirot, emanations of divine energy. In the same way, when planting our forest garden, we create plant guilds, inviting a connected but diverse cast of characters that each bring their own strategies for survival and reproduction, their own ecological specialties, their own medicine, their own invertebrate friends, their own tastes and smells, their own unique divine presence into our community.

In addition, when starting a new plant guild, we often add mychorhizal inoculant, a concentrated pro-biotic syrup to help transform the rocky clay that makes up the majority of our land into rich dense, living, soil. These microbes (fungi, yeasts, and bacteria) allow organic matter in the soil to break down, allow tree roots to absorb nutrients and moisture more efficiently, and enable certain plants to pull nitrogen out of the air and ‘fix’ it in the soil, making it available for other plants. Trusting in their invisible power and utter precision, we can feel with great depth the immaculate orchestration of the life support systems that make our earthly existence possible.

On Sukkot, we remember the precarious balance of our existence, that all our structures are in fact temporary, even King Solomon’s Temple. At the same time, we revel in the immense abundance of the earth itself, which nurtures and supports us with utter grace and forgiveness. By planting fruit trees, by turning baseball fields and suburban lawns into little gardens of Eden, we are creating a home in the deepest sense. We are not just receiving shefa, divine abundance, but making it our practice, our way of existence. In this sense, we are students of the apple tree and the shiitake mycelium and the winter squash, and even the sun, whose very innermost nature it is to give.

Understanding this, we may choose to shift our thinking from a rhetoric of scarcity, so pervasive in the wider culture today (recession, terrorism, resource scramble), to an ethic of abundance. In fact, studies have been done that show that calorie for calorie, small scale diverse vegetable production is in fact more productive on the same land than fossil fuel based conventional agriculture. And that is just in terms of food production, without factoring in “externalities” such as climate change and poisoned water from pesticides. The ‘fact’ is that the earth wants to feed us, a lot, a lot of lots of different things! In permaculture, we call this overyielding, that by mimicking natural plant communities and working with nature, we are actually more productive than when we attempt to isolate, control, and work against her. This practice is a combination of faith, gratitude, observation, sweat, and participation in the processes of life.

On a deeper level, on Sukkot we combine the four species (myrtle, willow, palm, citron) through the waving the Lulav, in an act of theurgy, a drawing down of the divine, that celebrates this life force by mapping it onto the six directions. As in other earth based wisdom traditions, we honor the sacred directions, the Arba Ruachot, the four winds. The word ruach is commonly used in the context of the life force, or flowing spirit, within our bodies and this is precisely the energy that we invoke in the the waving of the lulav, combining the fragrant and fertile abundance of the etrog with the active, extensive quality of the lulav, traditionally the center protrusion of a date palm. We shake the lulav in mystical extension of the divine flow to the four corners of the earth, as well as outward and inward, tuning the channels of manifestation, and allowing the garden to grow, in ourselves, and all around us.

At Eden Village, our Hebrew Calendar Garden, a technology for exploring living time, is also calibrated to the directions. Large spiraling beds for the months are inhabited by symbolic and seasonal plants. Tevet and Shvat are towards the north, representing the solitary wisdom, and creative potential, of Winter. Adar and Nisan are in the East, drawing forth the inspired energy of Spring. Tammuz and Av are in the South, active and intense in the heat of Summer. And Tishrei, the season of Autumn, is in the West. Our Tishrei bed contains winter squash, an apple tree guild, bee balm, purple violas. In an individual guild, we like to map out physical correspondences between the plant personalities we are bringing in and the energies of the directions. The calendar garden thus allows us to use plants to observe living time and to explore the symbolism of the festivals and the Arba Ruachot.

Sukkot is a great gathering in, as we honor and celebrate the physical and spiritual work of the summer that has culminated in our harvest. The autumnal, westerly qualities of reflection and celebration are present throughout the month of Tishrei, and the High Holy Days in particular, but it is the harvest festival aspect of Sukkot that is most resonant to us.

The Sukkot that we build hearken back to two different ecological relationships that we have lived as Jews. During Temple times, this period was the busiest time of the year, not only sewing next year’s grain, but harvesting as well, and thus huts were built and lived in close to the field while preparing for the pilgrimage to the great harvest festival in Jerusalem. At the same time, Sukkot also carries the older mythical-historical connotation of remembering our passage from Egypt and our wandering in the desert, when we truly lived according to the precarious balance of the elements.

Rabbi David Seidenberg quotes from Yalkut Shimoni, Pikudei: “When Israel was encamped the pillar of cloud was…like a sukkah and made a canopy over the tent from without, and filled the tabernacle mishkan from within…and this was one of the clouds of glory that served Israel forty years in the wilderness: one on their right and one on their left and one before them and one behind them and one above them and the cloud of the Shekhinah between them.”

As the waving of the Lulav honors the great directions, the schach with which we cover the Sukkah reminds us of the wild itself. It must be composed of cut, live branches, and must not be bundled or secured with artificial materials. It is living, natural, wild, and yet is part of our structure. Like a forest garden, it is both wild and domestic. It both shelters us and reminds us of our balanced and temporary existence on this Earth. It must provide shade and dwelling space, and yet remain open to the stars, and open to the rain.

During Sukkot, the rainy season is just beginning in Israel, and we contemplate the joyful and precise balance of our life on this gift-planet. That the rains may come in their proper time, in the proper proportion, not too much, not too little, as we we pray in the latter passage of the V’ahavta and with great emphasis in the latter part of Sukkot. There was a time when our grandfathers and grandmothers were so connected to the rain, that it was a matter of life or death. Eating has always been a holy act for Jews, but in modern times, we have let our agriculture leave us and become industrialized, let our eating leave us and become commercialized. We have lost some of that direct connection to the earth and thus to the water, but have remained a profoundly land based people despite ourselves. Honoring the earthly rhythms in our yearly festival cycles and singing them to life, however deeply encoded in our liturgy, we practice an ancient panentheistic agricultural religion whose purpose is to elevate our earthly existence and breathe unity back into a world that keeps forgetting itself.

But the circumstances of the world are beginning to shake us out of our complacency, that tendency to forget. The wool over our eyes is quite wet, in some parts of the world, and quite on fire in others, and dry as a bone in still others. So we are beginning to feel the effects of our actions, of disconnect, of treating the water, the land, and animals as a material resource to be bought and sold and used and used up. We are feeling the effects of a hundred years of the physical and spiritual monoculture of consumer culture.

By planting trees, by restoring degraded land to garden-kingdom, and by honoring the balance of the elements by dwelling in our sukkat shelomecha, our canopy of peace, we are restoring our human potential, our ability to bring forth. Forest gardens sequester carbon, restore biodiversity, increase water availability, and feed animals and humans for generations into the future. Generational continuity and memory is a foundational principle of Judaism, and can be beautifully expressed in the planting of trees who have productive lifespans in the range of hundreds of years.

One day he was going along the road, when he saw a man planting a carob tree. Honi asked, “In how many years will this tree that you are planting bear fruit?” The man responded, “In seventy years.” Honi asked, “Are you sure that you will live seventy more years to enjoy the fruit of this tree?!” The man said, “I was born into a world with carob trees. Just as my ancestors planted for me, so I plant for my descendants.”

Talmud Bavli Ta’anit 23a

As we allow the joyous gathering in energy of Sukkot to infuse our winter with life and possibility, may we draw inspiration from the wild places, and bring them into our dwelling places, plant a wild and abundant garden for future generations, and remember and praise the source of our provenance.

Ideas for Eco-Friendly Mishloach Manos

Green Purim Sameach! Canfei Nesharim has developed a selection of five eco-friendly and fun Mishloach Manot themed package ideas for you or your group to prepare and distribute to your constituents on Purim. Our aim was to create healthy, earth-friendly, and economical Mishloach Manot without the waste. To make this as easy as possible, we found many of the products on the web. You can order them directly by clicking the links below!

New! You can also include a simple printable message in your mishloach manot, explaining why you've chosen to be "green" this Purim. Simple, respectful, and easy! Download and Print

The five packages are the following:

• Lunch Break
• Health Nut
• Cold Kit
• Pesach Welcome Kit
• Blessing the Sun (Birkat HaChammah)

Scroll down to browse them all.

All the food and non-food items are to be packaged in a either a reusable container such as a washing cup or baseball cap or a biodegradable disposable container. The price key will help you (or your organization) find the products that fit your budget. Although we tried to help by organizing the Mishloach Manot items by bracha, and suggesting a number of items to choose for each, feel free to personalize the packages to suit your needs. (The mitzvah, of course, is to include at least one item from at least two different bracha categories.) Many thanks to Stephanie Frumkin for preparing this information.

Kashrus Note: While every effort has been taken to include only Kosher items, Heksharim do change, so please always check for up-to-date information. Note that dairy items listed are not necessarily "Chalav Yisrael."

Price Key
! = $.50 or less
+ = $1.00 or less
* = $2.00 or less
- = $3.00 or less
No symbol = more than $3.00

First, a few general eco-friendly suggestions:
- To keep items in place you may want to use a pretty handkerchief, kitchen towel, or bandana to either line the container or to wrap the container up and tie it with string or a ribbon.
- You can fill in extra space in the container by shredding (with a paper shredder or scissors) colorful old magazines or newspaper comics.
- Another option is to use whole, in the shell nuts as “packing peanuts.” You may want to also include a nutcracker.
- Enjoy!

Lunch Break

Choose One Container Option:
! 100% Recycled Paper Bag Order (can be decorated by kids or adults)
! Compostable Food "Clamshell" Container Order
! Compostable Two-Piece Deli Container Order
+ Colored Tote Bag Order
+ 12 oz. Corn Plastic Cup with Lid Order
+ BioPak Fiberboard Lunch Container Order
+ Compostable Food Salad Bowl Container Order
- Organic Cotton Muslin Produce / Snack Bag Order (can be decorated)
ChicoBag – Colorful, Compact Reusable Shopping Bag Order
Insulated Cooler Order

Choose One Mezonot Bracha Option:
+ CLIF Organic Z Bar, Chocolate Chip Order (other flavors available)
+ Barbara's Bakery Crunchy Organic Granola Bars Cinnamon Crisp Order (other flavors available)
Organic Kids: Cookie Snack Pack – Hunka Chunka Chocolate 1 oz. Bag Order

Choose One HaEitz/HaAdamah Bracha Option:
! Newman's Own®Organics California Raisins, 1.5-Ounce Box Order
! Organic or Locally Grown Fruit (in its own wrapper): apple, clementine, orange, pear, banana, pomegranate, or coconut (can be found at Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, or your local health food store or farmer’s market)

Choose Two Shehakol Bracha Options:
Yummy Earth Organic Lollipops (Order FREE from Canfei Nesharim)
! Real Salt Packets (Kosher for Passover) Order
+ FruitaBu Organic Smooshed Fruit, Smoooshed Rasberry Order
+ Let's Do Organic Jelly Gummi Bears Order
+ Santa Cruz Organic Cinnamon Apple Sauce, Snack Size Order
* Humm Foods Larabar, Jocalat, Organic Chocolate Food Bar Variety Pack Order (other flavors available)
* Horizon Organic Reduced Fat Milk, 8-Ounce Cartons Order (or "Chalav Yisrael" milk boxes where available)
- Lake Champlain Organic Dark Spicy Aztec Chocolate Bar Order

Choose One Non-Food Item (Optional):
! Biodegradable Mini Towelette Order
! Biodegradable Cutlery Combo Set Order
+ Cloth Napkin – Natural Impressions Outdoors Order (other options available from Amazon.com)

Health Nut

Choose One Container Option:
+ Large coffee mug (from your local dollar store)
Or see Lunch Break container ideas

Choose One Mezonot Bracha Option:
! Homemade Organic Whole Wheat Hamantaschen (made by you)
+ Late July Organic Peanut Butter Sandwich Crackers Order
+ Barbara's Bakery Crunchy Organic Granola Bars, Toasted Almond Order (peanut butter flavor also available)
* Clif Bar Energy Bars, Black Cherry Almond Order (other nut flavors available)

Choose One HaEitz/HaAdamah Bracha Option:
! Mixed Nuts in Shell Order
! Organic or Locally Grown Fruit (in own wrapper): apple, clementine, orange, pear, banana, pomegranate, coconut (can be found at Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, or your local health food store or farmer’s market)
! Sunland Salted Valencia Peanuts in Shell, 4 Ounce Bags Order (or buy in bulk and separate intobiodegradable baggies)
*Galil Organic Roasted Chestnuts, 3.5-Ounce Pouch Order
+ Organic Sweetened Dried Cherries Order (separate into individual packages using biodegradable baggies)

Choose One or Two Shehakol Bracha Options:
! (individual tea bags) or – (box) Stash Premium Decaf Chocolate Hazelnut Tea Order (other nut flavors available)
+ Organic Honey Peanut Butter Squeeze Packs by Justin’s Nut Butter Order (other flavors available including almond)
+ Java Juice ® Liquid Coffee Extract, Organic Hazelnut Order
* Rigoni Acacia Honey (organic) 30 grams Order
* Fairwinds Hazelnut Coffee – One Pot Sampler Order (other brands available at gourmet-coffee.com)
* LaraBar: The Original Fruit and Nut Food Bar – Pecan Pie Order (other flavors available)

Choose One or Two Non-Food Items (Optional):
* Nutcracker (Order this one or see other options available on Amazon.com)
- Dr. Bronner’s Organic Almond Castile Soap Bar Order

Cold Kit

Choose One Container Option:
! Tissue Boxes – Collect used tissue boxes, cut on one side to open, and tape up after filling with goods. If you need to purchase tissues boxes, Kleenex brand makes large, pretty floral boxes and may be available at your local Costco (not online) in bulk. You may want to roll up some tissues and tie with a colored string (or put inbiodegradable baggies) and include them in the Mishloach Manot packages. Leftover tissues may be used as Shabbat toilet tissue.
! Bagasse Soup Bowls Order
! (with Lids) Order
! Bioplastic Soup Bowls Order
+ Reusable Soup Bowl (from your local dollar store)
+ Large Coffee Mug (from your local dollar store)

Choose One Mezonot Bracha Option:
Nature's Path Organic Optimum Energy Bar Pomegranate Cherry Order

Choose One HaEitz Bracha Option:
! Organic or Locally Grown Clementine or Orange (for extra vitamin C)

Choose Two Shehakol Bracha Options:
! (individual tea bags) or – (box) Taanug Mint Tea Order
+ Ricola Natural Herb Cough Drops Order
+ Honest Kids Tropical Tango Punch USDA Organic Thirst Quenchers 8pk Order
- Imagine Vegetable Broth, Organic, 16-Ounce Box Order
Imagine Organic Soup, Creamy Butternut Squash Soup, 16-Ounce Box Order
Marshall’s Raw honey 3 oz Order

Choose One or Two Non-Food Items (Optional):
! Trader Joe’s 100% Recycled Facial Tissue Pocket Packs – 10 Packs (not available on-line)
+ Handkerchief Order
+ Clean Well Natural Hand Sanitizing Individual Wipes Order
- Dr. Bronner’s Orange Ginger Organic Lip Balm Order (other varieties available)
- Dr. Bronner's & Sun Dog's Magic Peppermint Organic Lip Balm (other varieties available) Order

Pesach Welcome Kit

Note: The goal of this Pesach Welcome Kit was to provide items which would help you prepare for Pesach — and not add more chametz to your kitchen! However, we found it extremely difficult to find healthy or organic Pesach foods, especially in time for Purim. We've listed the ideas we came up with; we welcome your suggestions!

Choose One Container Option:
* Washing Cup Order
+ Colored Tote Bag Order
+ Wicker Basket (from your local dollar store)
+ Oven Mitt (from your local dollar store)
- Organic Cotton Muslin Produce / Snack Bag (can be decorated) Order
ChicoBag – Colorful, Compact Reusable Shopping Bag (to use in Pesach shopping) Order

Choose One (or none) HaMotzei Bracha Option:
Organic Kosher for Passover Matzah (may be ordered from your local kosher grocery store—Yehuda or other brands)

Choose One (or none) HaGefen Bracha Option:
Kedem Organic Grape Juice 22 oz. Order

Choose One Mezonot Bracha Option:
Streit's Matzo Crackers, Organic Cracker, Round (may be ordered from your local grocery store that carries Streit’s products)
Shibolim Whole Wheat Stone Ground Organic Crisp Bread Order (not kosher for Passover but looks like matzah)

Choose One or Two HaEitz/HaAdamah Bracha Options:
! Mixed Nuts in Shell Order
! Organic or Locally Grown Fruit (in own wrapper): apple, clementine, orange, pear, banana, pomegranate, coconut (can be found at Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, or your local health food store or farmer’s market)
+ Organic Dried Apple Rings, 5 lb Box Order (separate into individual packages using biodegradable baggies)
- Ancient Harvest Organic Quinoa Order (must be checked prior to Pesach)

Choose One or Two Shehakol Bracha Options:
! Real Salt Packets Order
! (individual tea bags) or – (box) Taanug Chamomile Tea Order (other flavors available)
- Real Salt Travel Shaker – 2 oz. Order
Gefen 100% Organic Honey Order

Choose One or Two Non-Food Items (Intended for Pesach cleaning):
* Naked Sponge #55 – Biodegradable Sponge Order
- Dr. Bronner’s Citrus Liquid Soap – 2 oz Order (other scents available)

The Blessing Of The Sun – Birkat HaChammah

The goal of this package is to remind your friends about Birkat HaChammah, the blessing of the sun which occurs every 28 years in the Jewish calendar. Last year it took place on April 8. Accordingly, the items including have a "sunny" theme, with names or shapes that reminded us of the sun. (In order to meet this goal, we sometimes compromised and chose non-organic products for this package. We noted where this is the case; you can choose whether you'd like to do the same.) You can also include our free "Appreciation for Creation" wallet cards, which include the appropriate blessing.

Choose One Container Option:
* Sun hat or baseball cap Order

Choose One Mezonot Bracha Option:
! Earth's Best Sunny Days Snack Bars, Apple Order
! Late July Round Saltines, 2 Crackers per Packet Order (round like the sun)
+ Late July Organic Mini Peanut Butter Bite Size Sandwich Crackers Order (round like the sun)

Choose One or Two HaEitz/HaAdamah Bracha Options:
! Sun Maid Raisins, 1.5-Ounce Cartons Order (not organic)
! Sunland Salted Valencia Peanuts in Shell, 4 Ounce Bags Order (or buy in bulk and separate intobiodegradable baggies)
* Sunflower Seeds Order (separate into biodegradable baggies)
- Roland Sun-Dried Tomatoes Halves, 3.5-Ounce Order (not organic)

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The Environmental movement that has sprung forth from the West bears many imprints of the same paradigms of thought that have led to the environmental crisis itself. There is a tendency to rush towards results and overlook the process required to organically arrive at those results, and part of our work in healing is to redress these internalized ways of thinking to arrive at a truly sustainable way of living. Through the Torah this lesson of process is being learned.

At the beginning of Parshat Mikeitz we hear of Pharoah’s prophetic dream: seven robust cows devoured by seven frail ones.[1]. The signs seem clear for all to see: seven good and seven so bad they devour the good that was. It is a vision that perhaps foretells of our human endeavors with technology: a golden age of Enlightenment and invention, industrialization and higher qualities of life, now quivering under the unknown threat of today’s environmental crisis.

Why weren’t the Egyptians able to understand the dream? Upon hearing Joseph’s (Yosef) interpretation, it seems fairly clear. Was it myopia? Was it denial? (Not the river in Egypt, of course. Ouch! Forgive my rabbinic indulgence) How do we as environmentalists, aware of the “dreams” (predictions) of our scientists, share the interpretation? The challenge of “giving over the bad news” is something environmentalists have been struggling with for the last 30 years. With news that nobody wants to hear, how do we spread the message? And as our goal is not to share bad news, but rather to inspire, motivate and guide necessary changes that society and individuals need to make — how do we achieve this?

The environmental movement faces this challenge to catalyze change in two distinct realms: action and spirit. In the realm of action, consumer patterns, industrial pollution and carbon footprints are the terms of discourse and site of change. But in a broader perspective those actions are the result of a deeper problem: an imbalance of spirit, or exile. If our lifestyle is out of balance with the ecosystems we inhabit, is it fair to assume that our inner dimensions are also out of balance? And while we are seeing great advances and potential in addressing the action side of our crisis, is enough attention being paid to the inner dimensions of disconnect?

At the end of the day, as green technologies become a greater part of public awareness and economic reality, the actions seem easier to fix, while our personal and intimate awareness of what is around us remains as disconnected as ever. How do we address this experiential exile from our Place? How do we share that the importance of a personal connection to one’s habitat „Ÿ the seasons, the fruits and the land „Ÿ and the living experience of connection to a place, is really a connection to a part of our own larger self?

If the vision at the opening of Mikeitz raises the question, perhaps we may seek an answer from the same parsha. Yosef, the favorite son who was years before left for dead by his jealous brothers, has come to power in Egypt and is in charge of dispensing the only food stores in the region. Jacob (Ya’akov), his father, sends a “care package” down with his brothers to the ruler, gifting him with fruits of the land of Israel. How estranged has this son become to his land and people? Ya’akov and his sons are playing the role of ambassador to an exiled Yosef. As environmentalists who are aware of the crisis our actions have placed before our planet, we are also in a role of ambassadorship to a society that continues down an unsustainable path.

Ya’akov does not point out the bad points of Egypt, rather he sends Yosef the fruits of the land. Rebbe Nachman writes that Jacob was sending this mysterious ruler of Egypt a taste of what the Land of Israel is.[2] This is perhaps the true core of environmental work „Ÿ to pass on the awareness of ourselves within our surroundings. The song of the land is a serenade waiting to be heard. Whether working with youth in the city or CEOs of multi-nationals, at our best we are trying to bring the voice of the earth into the equation.

When Ya’akov sends Yosef the package, the Torah calls it zimrat ha’aretz, the song of the land.[3] The translation of Unkelos understands this phrase to mean “the crops that a land is praised for.” The connection between fruits and song is a rather significant theme in Jewish agriculture. As the Mishnayot of Bikurim (First Fruits) describes, the bringing of the first fruits to Jerusalem in the days of the Temple was accompanied by music.[4] Elsewhere, the Talmud teaches that “song is not said except for over wine…”[5]

The tastes of a place become indelibly etched into our memories. I have an uncle who hasn’t been to Israel in 20 years, and what I hear him asking for is “one of those Israeli tomatoes or cucumbers.” Taste is beyond words, yet somehow contains the experience of a place.

In the Torah text, the trop (musical notation) that hover over the shapes and dots of the letters are called the ta’amim, a word that literally means taste. Kabbala teaches that these “tastes” reveal the secret meaning of the text. And when Yosef receives the offering of the tastes of his homeland, it is written in the Torah as the start of the sequence wherein Yosef begins crying for home. [6]

An experience that is by definition beyond words finds its voice through taste and song. The fruits of the land have the power to bring us back to a place of pure connection. Though a tremendous focus of environmental work is on fixing the actions of society, we don’t want to miss the deeper challenges that are at the root of our physical disconnect, for that is the source from where we will harvest the real fruits.

What is being said here is that the Torah’s choice of calling the fruits the “song of the land” alludes to a level of existence well beyond the form and atoms we know so well. Well beyond the mere actions that we do in this world. In Kabbala the dual existence of spirit and matter is called the “light” and the “vessels.” There is a crucial lesson therein for building sustainable forms of activism and change. Our personal encounters with nature „Ÿ the quiet, sanctity, connection, beauty etc. „Ÿ are “lights” that slowly build within us, a growing awareness that can change how we act. For some people the gap between this experience of nature, and the destructive effects our lifestyles have upon it, has propelled them into action. The light of their experience has become a vessel. (This is how Kabbala describes the original formation of this world: the original light eventually materialized into physical vessels.) This is beautifully reflected in how Ya’akov tells the brothers “to take from the fruits of the land in your vessels" [7]

What is crucial for our own sanity as environmentalists is to refresh our source of light „Ÿ to take our breaks, our Shabbat in the woods, our daily reconnecting with who and where we are. And then we can share this level of experience with our neighbors and friends as a part of our path, just as Yosef shared with the Egyptians not just the doomsday prediction, but also the solution.

Any of the below “Suggested Action Items” can help foster our sense of belonging to the place we inhabit and ultimately help us to nurture the awareness from where sustainable living habits will grow naturally. The taste and song of Green living are the greatest allies in affecting substantial organic change in our patterns. For if we end up with an environmentally sustainable lifestyle but have never grown any more aware of our surroundings and our personal connection to that which is outside of us, we may be missing one of the ultimate lessons the environmental crisis is here to teach us.

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Suggested Action Items:

1. Find a guide to local plants and wildlife, providing yourself with a glimpse of what was here before us.

2.Learn the local geology of your neighborhood and natural forces that sculptured the terrain – transform walking to the corner store into a hike!

3. Discover who the natives were who grew up in harmony with the place you currently live.

4. Learn the factors in your local climates (beyond the weather forecaster) to increase success in planning outings under good weather.

5. Introduce school children to the ecosystem that exists below the asphalt and that which has developed above it.

6. Buy foods from local farms, cutting down tremendously on the transport costs of fuel and also bringing you into sensual contact with place and time.

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Rabbi Shaul David Judelman currently resides in Jerusalem. After growing up amongst the Douglas Firs of Seattle, Washington, he came to Israel on a quest for Judaism alive in its land. He spent six years in the Bat Ayin Yeshiva Rabbinical program and now teaches at Yeshivat Simchat Shlomo while working on several different environmental initiatives in Jerusalem. He is the founder and coordinator of Simchat Shlomo’s Eco-Activist Beit Midrash, a program offering holistic in-depth Torah study around issues of ecology.
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[1] Gen. 41:2-4

[2] Likutey Moharan, Part II:63

[3] Gen. 43:11; The simplest meaning of these words is the “trimmings of the land.”

[4] Mishanyot, Bikurim, 3:3

[5] Berachot 35a

[6] Gen. 43:25-30

[7] Gen. 43:11