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.

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow

This past Shabbat, in the same mail–delivery to my door,  there arrived both a copy of Rabbi David Seidenberg’s magnum opus Kabbalah & Ecology (published by Cambridge University Press), and the in-print Fall 2015 issue of Tikkun magazine, including an article of mine  on “Prayer as if the Earth Really Matters. ”  

My article encodes into liturgy an explicitly unconventional eco-Jewish theology. It joins a series of articles in that issue of Tikkun that are a kind of anthology of eco-theologies in various traditions: Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Christianity, and several strands of spiritually open secular thought. 

Rabbi Seidenberg’s book  and my article (a distillation of much of my own eco-theology) present two new theologies, both rooted in Torah, looking at different aspects of Torah yet both reframing the relation of God to Earth and human earthlings.

David’s work, as his title announces, draws chiefly on Kabbalah and addresses its way of understanding tzelem elohim, the Image of God. He brilliantly shows that many Kabbalists extended the sense of the Image not only to the human species but to the universe as a whole and therefore all the beings within it. And he wonderfully explores the implications of this finding — intellectual, spiritual, scientific.

 My work is much more rooted in Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible — as the spiritual explorations of an indigenous people of shepherds & farmers

who are close to the land. To understand God at the heart of this, I hear— literally hear —  YHWH as YyyyHhhhWwwwHhhh – the Breathing/ Interbreathing Spirit of the world –  ruach ha’olam – and I hear the shmei rabbah / Great Name of the Kaddish as a Rabbinic continuation of this outlook — weaving together all the names of all beings, including galaxies and quarks, rabbis and rabbits.

So it felt utterly fitting that on the day that they arrived in my mailbox was not only Shabbat but also the 8th day of Passover, Its fervently messianic Prophetic reading – “The wolf shall lie down with the lamb; in all my holy mountain nothing vile or evil shall be done; the intimate knowing of the Breath of Life shall fill the Earth as the waters cover the sea””) gives it the name of “the Passover of the Future.”.

My outlook begins with the spiritual findings, parables, and teachings rooted in one people’s experience of one sliver of a multi-ecosystem land on the eastern edge of the Mediterranean,  and I midrashically extrapolate from there/then to the planet as a whole in an era when what we extract and consume from the Earth is no longer only edible food but also burnable fossil fuels.

 Whereas the Image of God that draws David comes from the first Creation story, I focus on a crucial thread of Torah starting from the second Creation story –– adam birthed from adamah, and YHWH breathing life into the newborn human species as a midwife breathes life into the newborn human individual. (“Earthling” and “Earth” are the closest we can get in English to the richness of “adam and adamah” in Hebrew.)

 From there I see a crucial thread of concern for Earth-earthling relationship that runs through Tanakh — beginning with a parable of the disaster of failed adam/ adamah relationship in Eden, and then yearning toward a series of  sacred efforts to repair the disaster: the parable of bountiful Manna that comes with restful Shabbat; the attempt to make shared bounty practical through the Sabbatical/ Shmita Year and its hope of  the Jubilee/ Homebringing Year; and ultimately the vision of the Song of Songs  –  Eden once again, this time for a grown-up race of human earthlings and our well-beloved Earth.

I am delighted that both these new Jewish theologies are emerging in response to the planetary crisis we are in. Indeed, they both point to the ways in which the world we actually live in, and the policies and practices we develop to address it, call us to re-imagine God –-  that is, to create new theologies.

I had time on this past  Shabbos/ Yontif & Maimouna to begin perusing David’s book– which I had not been able to do in any thorough way via electrons. (My eye-brain connections still live in the 20^th century.)

I’m very impressed indeed.   Extraordinary breadth of scholarship, both in Jewish texts and in ancillary readings on e.g. evolution and other related fields. And a strong thread of Akiba’s “Study is greater ––  if it leads to action.”

I was especially tickled to see David’s comments on the Great Chain of Being. (The “Great Chain of Being” is a theory of the world as a hierarchy from “inanimate objects” like rocks up to the Divine King and Lord.)

In my Tikkun article I explicitly took on the GCB thus –

It is both factually and theologically notable that this liturgical song [“We Have the Whole World in Our Hands”] transforms an older hymn in which the refrain was, “He has the whole world in His hands.”

That assertion — He is in charge of the world —  is closely related to a major traditional metaphor in most Jewish, Christian, and Muslim prayer. In that metaphor,  God is King, Lord, Judge —  above and beyond the human beings who are praying.  In regard to the Earth, this metaphor crowned a series of hierarchies:

The “Great Chain of Being” is a theory of the world as a hierarchy from rocks and rivers up to vegetation, thence up to animals and then to human beings and finally up to the Divine King and Lord. 

Today we know that the relationship between the human species and the Earth is ill described by these metaphors of hierarchy.  Not only do we know that what we breathe in depends upon what the trees and grasses breathe out; now we know that within our own guts are myriads of microscopic creatures that occasionally make us sick but far more often keep us alive and healthy.

…  So  those metaphors of ordered hierarchy are no longer truthful, viable, or useful to us as tools of spiritual enlightenment.

If we are to seek spiritual depth and height, the whole framework of prayer must be transformed.

I hope that many of us will read both David’s book and the whole issue of Tikkun. My own essay is also at  –

 <https://theshalomcenter.org/content/prayer-if-earth-really-matters>. And the Introduction to David’s book is posted at <neohasid.org/KAE>, together with instructions on how to order it.

 From our different perspectives, David and I are both especially interested in efforts to synthesize ancient wisdom with post-modern science. 

 For him, the question is how Kabbalah and modern Science (especially an ecological-scientific frame of mind) may track each other.

 From my different focus on the Tanakh, I am interested in –

• connecting the warnings of Lev 26 with modern ecological predictions;
• connecting YHWH as  Interbreath of Life with the Oxygen/CO2 interchange so that the “climate crisis” – resulting from a catastrophic overdose of CO2 –  can be seen as a crisis in “YHWH” Itself – a crisis in God’s Name;
• seeing paragraph 2 of the Sh’ma as a  proto-scientific statement about the relationship between idolatry (“carving out” only a part of the Breath/Flow/ Great Name to worship as ultimate) and eco-catastrophes;
• seeing Pharaoh, enslavement,  and the Plagues as a teaching affirmed by modern political/ economic science that top-down arrogant power oppresses both human beings and the Earth, requiring struggle for eco-social  justice. (So for me, eco-theology flows smoothly into political activism.)

In short, I bring “social science” and “political science” and biological/ climatological/ ecological science into relationship with the early “science” of shepherds and farmers observing their own relationship with the Earth, making systemic theory from their observations  — and treating that relationship itself as sacred and our understanding of that relationship as Torah.

I take great joy in the simultaneous emergence of two eco-theologies – one that begins with the Image of God in the first Creation story, and another that begins with the Earth/ earthling relationship in the second Creation story. (David’s work does not ignore the second story, but his focus on the Image and on Kabbalah draw him in a different direction.)

May we be able to weave the two stories together as does our earliest Torah!

We dreamed, you and I,

my brother and my sister,

interpreter it has none,

an ancient dream it is,

as the days when we went forth from exile,

but you forgot it or did not elucidate it for yourselves,

and I did not recount it to you.

Grand is the dream,

vast like the void of the universe,

and we long for it with our souls,

but I will not remind you of it this time,

except for a small fragment/excerpt.
Now, please hear, my brother,

please hear my dream, my sister,

and remember that you also dreamed as I did.

 
In my dream–and here it is,

I arrive at the land.

And the land is neglected and desolate

and is in the hands of foreigners,

and the destruction darkens the light of her face

and destroys her spirit,

and an alien government corrupts her.

Distant from me and strange to me

is the land of my ancestors,

and I, too, am distant from her and a stranger to her.

The single connection that ties me to her,

and the lone memory that reminds me

that she is my mother and I am her son,

is–because my soul is also desolate

like her,

for it, too, fell into the hands of foreigners,

to destruct it and destroy it.

I feel the destruction and I ponder the ruins

with all my soul

and with every ounce of my being,

and a divine voice goes forth from the ruins and declares,

“Mortal! Consider these ruins,

and consider them once again,

turn not a blind eye to them.

And you shall know and gain insight

to what you already understand,

that the destruction is the destruction of your soul,

and the destroyer is the destroyer in your life,

in the midst of which you lived in foreign lands

and which clung to you until this time.

Remember this,

for your redemption requires this!

And as you continue to ponder and to dig deeper,

you shall see that from below the ruins

an orphan cinder still whispers,

saved by hiding from the spirit of that life,

and the spirit of the land breathes upon it

to bring it to life.

And when it totally abandoned that life,

which others created,

when you left their land and arrived here

to create a new life for yourself, your life–

then cinder smoldered and lived,

glowed and brought forth its flame,

and you returned and lived,

and your people and your land returned and lived.

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.

Download the free “Haggadah of the Inner Seder” (18 pp.). PDF, RTF, and DOC versions, along with a brief guide to the haggadah’s features, can be found at: http://neohasid.org/zman/pesach/InnerSeder/.
You can also go to neohasid.org for Omer Counter apps, and for information about David Seidenberg’s new book, Kabbalah and Ecology: God’s Image in the More-Than-Human World, published by Cambridge University Press.

As we head into winter, the light changes and creates changes inside of us. Dusk descends upon the Earth earlier and dawn arrives later.  An evening walk takes us through luminous pockets of blue, white, red and green. For some, winter light brings a melancholy and longing for bright summer sunlight. For others, the candles and iridescent colored bulbs bring excitement and nostalgia.

It is with this consciousness of light and its effects on the human condition that the Jewish people observe Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights.

During Hanukkah, we commemorate the triumph of the Maccabees over the Greeks in the 2nd century BCE.  When they rededicated the desecrated Temple, the Maccabees found only one cruse of oil left to light the ceremonial lamp.  That cruse of oil was only expected to last for one night; however, it lasted for eight days.

What meanings can we glean from the miracle of the oil? Perhaps it is that no matter how abused or degraded an individual or a group may be, there is the capacity in it for more fire and light than one could ever imagine. Or maybe it is that triumph over oppression illuminates what is good.  We have what we need even if it doesn’t seem as though we have enough.  We can enter darkness in our world and in our souls knowing that we will endure, and that world has what it needs to illuminate truth, beauty and goodness.

Congregation Har Shalom is getting ready to construct its outdoor hanukkiah, which we light each night in front of the synagogue.  What will be different about this year’s Hanukkah Festivities at Har Shalom?

Generally the custom on Hanukkah is to light one candle for the first night, and one additional light each night until the eighth night when the hanukkiah is aglow with all eight branches burning brightly.  This custom was the custom of the School of Hillel.  A lesser known form of the ritual – that of the House of Shammai- is to light eight lights on the first night and one fewer each night until one candle remains lit.  This year, since it is a shmita or sabbatical year in which we allow fields to lie fallow as instructed by the Torah, our community has decided that we will light our public hanukkiah according to the lesser known tradition. This mirrors the shift away from production and cultivation of land which in our times can be construed as increasing consumption of energy and natural resources.  The lights of the universe and beyond will be felt most profoundly on the culminating 8th night instead of eight lights that are humanly constructed and lit.

The sabbatical year occurs every seven years and provides the opportunity for a shift in perspective towards humility in which we can explore the non-dominant approach.   Our usual way of doing things is interrupted and we take some time to retreat into stillness.  From there, new approaches to address old problems arise, a welcome opportunity in this challenging year.  We hope you will join us in staring into the night sky and that you will be blessed with discernment, and the lights of awareness and new hope.

Rabbi Shoshana Leis is co- rabbi of Har Shalom Center for Jewish Living.  Jennifer Geraci is the Vice President of Spiritual Practice at Har Shalom. Visit congregationharshalom.org for information on Hanukkah activities and more.

World leaders will be meeting in Lima, Peru, on December 1-12, for the UN Climate Change Conference (COP20/CMP10). They’ll be working to establish the fundamentals of a strong, global agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – an agreement that we hope will then be finalized in Paris in 2015. These leaders need to know that we’re holding their work in our thoughts, meditations and prayers. As they start their work, join us in a vigil calling for meaningful progress toward a world safe from climate change.

Please send a representative to light a candle on behalf of your community or congregation. The candle is a symbol of hope that the negotiations in Lima will be carried out in a spirit of love, compassion, and caring.  To sign up to represent your faith community, please contact n.lorence2013@gmail.com andcatherineskopic@yahoo.com

Spread the word on facebook and announce this vigil in your newsletter and at your services.

Vigil on December 7, 2014 at 4:00 pm in Union Square

Just before Yom Kippur, I posted Al Chet – Confessional for the Earth. So many are the deeds, misdeeds, and non-deeds in relation to the Earth for which we must confess, and then, hopefully, do teshuvah. With this post I begin a series of suggestions for how to implement changes that can help to make our confessional meaningful beyond its words, into actions.

I begin with a response to this phrase:

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

Do you believe you are doing enough? I think many of us feel we are not. Maybe we even have in our heads ideas of what we should be doing, but we have a hard time getting motivated. Maybe we are scared, or just stuck, or overwhelmed by the many options running through our heads or coming at us in email blasts and other social media.

How do we find our own path? For it is our own path we must follow – the on-going process teshuvah is a very individual one, and that is what we are talking about – re-turning to G!d in a way that really alters our actions.

So I offer for you a meditation to help you solidify your understanding of your way forward to a more complete relationship with the Holy One of Blessing and the Earth.

Meditation for a Stronger and More Active Earth Connection

• Step outside.
• Make yourself comfortable in a comfortable place. Give yourself a few minutes to settle in.
• Relax your breathing. Breathe in deeply. Breath out, slowly exhaling. Repeat, using the breathy word Yah - G!d – the Breath of Life.
• Now feel the Earth beneath your feet. Focus on the connection between your feet and the ground beneath. Feel your connection to Earth flowing up from below. Then feel the Earth’s connection to you flowing downward from yourself.
• Return to a few breaths of Yah.
• Look upward at the sky. Feel your connection to the heavens – the Sun, the stars, the Moon. Focus on that connection. Allow the energy of your connection to the heavens to flow down from above. Then feel the sky’s connection to you flowing upward from yourself.
• Breathe deeply.
• Close your eyes. Visualize your connection to beloved places, to important people in your life, to other living things. Allow their connection to you to flow inward to your heart. Allow your connection to them to flow outward in return.
• Breathe deeply.
• Use your own language and images. Feel a sense of gratitude. Ask G!d for strength and direction.
• Hold the silence. Hold the stillness. Hold the strength. Let the answers come.
• Breathe deeply.
• When you are ready, open your eyes.
• Feel yourself blessed and energized.
• When you are ready, move onward to what is next.

You may wish to repeat this, to modify and make it your own. Perhaps you want to add words – or a word – of prayer. Play with it until you feel a new sense of resolve and strength and courage to move forward.

Remember that the Confession for the Earth ends with these words:”we are the ones we have been waiting for.”

You can do it. I can do it. Together, we can do it.

And we will.

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.

contributed by all the organizations and initiatives on “the Map” http://jewcology.org/map-of-initiatives/

Here’s a quick bit of Sukkot Torah to start us off: “The four species of the lulav represent the four types of ecosystems in the land of Israel: desert (date palm), hills (myrtle), river corridors (willow), and sh’feilah, the lowlands (etrog). Each species has to be fresh, with the very tips intact – they can’t be dried out, because they hold the water of last year’s rain. Together, they make a kind of map of last year’s rainfall, and together, we use them to pray for next year’s rains.” I hope everyone enjoys the wonderful array of activities and ideas we are generating. We are a strong and beautiful network. Please add more to this list if you like: write to rebduvid86@gmail.com and I’ll update this page. I will also be updating the format and fixing the fonts — I don’t have time Erev Yom Kippur to do more than simply share this content. Thank you to everyone who shared, and g’mar chatimah tovah! Rabbi David Seidenberg, neohasid.org

Resources

from Judith Belasco, Hazon

http://hazon.org/educational-resources/holidays/sukkot/ Hazon also has an incredible array of resources on Shmita linked at: http://hazon.org/shmita-project/educational-resources/resource-library/

from the Religious Action Center

“Eco-Friendly Sukkot”  http://resources.rj.org/Articles/index.cfm?id=1369

“Table Texts about Food Justice” http://rac.org/pdf/index.cfm?id=23602

from Max Arad and Rabbi Carol Levithan, The Rabbinical Assembly

“The Sukkah as Shelter: A Source Sheet” http://www.rabbinicalassembly.org/sites/default/files/public/jewish-law/holidays/sukkot/sukkah-as-shelter.pdf See also: http://www.rabbinicalassembly.org/jewish-law/holidays/sukkot

 from Jeffrey Cohan, Jewish Vegetarians of North America

“Sukkot, Simchat Torah, and Vegetarianism” http://www.jewishveg.com/schwartz/hlydysu.html

from Rabbi Katy Z. Allen, Ma’yan Tikvah

Ushpizin for an Ecological Sukkot by Laurie Levy https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzF1ISt_50TyVG9lWE0zOXJpd1k/edit

from Rabbi Arthur Waskow, Shalom Center

14 articles on Sukkot at: https://theshalomcenter.org/treasury/114 including “Reb Zalman’s Prayers for the Earth on Hoshana Rabbah” and “Spread over all of us a Sukkah of shalom, salaam, paz, peace!”   from Rabbi David Seidenberg, neohasid.org “How-to Build a Sukkah For Under $40” http://www.neohasid.org/sukkot/a_simple_sukkah/ more links at: http://neohasid.org/zman/sukkot/ including “Eco-Torah for Sukkot”, “Hoshanot, the Original Jewish Earth Prayers”, and “Egalitarian Ushpizin with a Prayer for the Earth”

 from Canfei Nesharim via Rabbi Yonatan Neril

resources can be found at http://canfeinesharim.org/sukkot/ and on Jewcology http://jewcology.org/resources/sukkot-shemini-atzeret-resource-and-program-bank/

 also from Rabbi Yonatan Neril, for Jewish Ecoseminars

http://www.jewishecoseminars.com/let-the-land-rest-lessons-from-shemita-the-sabbatical-year/

 from Nati Passow, Jewish Farm School

Two resource sheets for Shmita to be posted on Jewcology – look for them on Monday before Sukkot

 from Anna Hanau, Grow and Behold Foods

Recipes (meat): http://growandbeholdblog.wordpress.com/tag/sukkot/

Events

We have three big regional festival events going on, Sukkahfest, Sukkot on the Farm, and Sukkahpalooza, and lots more local events:

 from Judith Belasco, Hazon/Isabella Freedman

Oct 8-Oct 12, Sukkahfest at Isabella Freedman Retreat Center http://hazon.org/calendar/sukkahfest-2014/

 from Pearlstone

Oct 8-Oct 12, Sukkahpalooza http://pearlstonecenter.org/signature-programs/sukkot/

 from Sarai Shapiro, Wilderness Torah

Oct 9-Oct 12, Sukkot on the Farm, Green Oak Creeks Farm, Pescadero CA http://www.wildernesstorah.org/programs/festivals/sukkot/   local events and projects:

from Hazzan Paul A. Buch, Temple Beth Israel, Pomona CA

Our synagogue will break ground during Sukkot on a 1/2 acre urban farm on our property, in cooperation with a local NGO. The farm will be fully managed by the NGO at no cost to us, and all workers are paid a living wage. The produce grown will be available for purchase to our congregation and sold at farmers markets in the area. A portion will be dedicated to those who are food insecure. Question for everyone: Do you know of any other synagogues who have dedicated their land in a similar way?  Please note this is not an urban garden, but a functioning not-for-profit commercial project.

from Becky O’Brien, Boulder Hazon

Oct 6, at 5:30 pm, family sukkot program, in partnership with the south Denver JCC Oct 12, at 4:00 and 7:00 pm, screenings of “Road to Eden”, co-sponsored with the Boulder JCC Oct 16, Sukkot Mishpacha, a program for young families at a local organic farm Rabbi Julian Sinclair stopped in Denver/Boulder on his recent book tour promoting Shabbat Ha’aretz; we hosted five programs with him earlier this month. We are leading a shmita hike for local staff of Jewish organizations to help them decompress from the hectic time of the high holidays. We expect that many shmita-related programs will arise throughout the year but we don’t yet know what they will be.

from Helen Bennet, Moishe Kavod House

Fri Oct 10, Shabbat in the sukkah Tues Oct 14, Sukkot Festival dinner, co-hosted with Ganei Beantown (Leora Mallach). Moishe Kavod is planning to run a series of learning and DIY sessions on shmita starting in November, with focuses on economic justice, food and ag system, and chesed/caring community principles.

 from Gail Wechsler, St. Louis Jewish Environmental Initiative (JEI)

Sun Oct 12, 4-6 PM, screening of the film “Fire Lines”, about joint Israeli and Palestinian fire fighting efforts during the Carmel fire of December 2010. The film includes environmental themes as part of the reason for the fire was overforestation of the affected area. The director, Avi Goldstein, will speak after the film.  In partnership with the Jewish Community Relations Council, Webster University and the JCC.

followed by:

Sun Oct 12, 6-7:30 PM, organic potluck Sukkot dinner. In partnership with the JCC and its Garden of Eden, a community garden that grows organic fruits and vegetables to benefit the clients of the nearby Harvey Kornblum Jewish Food Pantry. Both events at the Jewish Community Center Staenberg Arts & Education Building.

from Michael Rosenzweig, Boulder JCC

We have a great event each year called Sukkot Mishpacha, where we partner with a local farm so the children and families can learn about environmental issues, do fun arts and crafts projects, and pick their own gourds. http://www.boulderjcc.org/events/2249/2014/10/14/boulder-jcc-events-calendar/sukkot-mishpacha/ Note: I have not included narrative detail in general here, but I found Rhonda Ginsberg’s description so delightful to imagine and I just didn’t think I could condense it. So here is what she wrote to me, with some minor editing:

from Rhonda Ginsberg, teacher, Carmel Academy, Greenwich CT

For Sukkot we do a 4 year rotation focusing on different aspects of the holiday.  The first year of the cycle we invite the ushpizin and have the 7 species at a festive meal.  The second year we look at wind with kite flying as a major activity, the third at rain and water, and the last year at stars and shade. Each exploration is done both from the Judaics side with text study and from the science/experiential side. This year we are looking at water.  For the K to 3rd graders, teachers act out the story “Why Does it Rain on Sukkot”, MS. Frizzle (science teacher) comes to teach about rain & why it’s needed, then students rotate through stations that are led by 4th graders and teachers.  At the stations they investigate kosher tops for pipework sukkot, create rain sticks, have various water activities & races, sing songs & learn the dance “Mayyim”.  For the 5th to 8th graders, they start with an appropriate text study.  Then, the 6th through 8th graders become the instructors teaching the other grades about the aspect of water that they researched and created a project for.  6th graders look at the water cycle, which they present through posters, dioramas, etc.  They also perform a song and skit on the water cycle.  7th graders research water pollution – causes, effects, and possible solutions.  8th grade engineering students investigate flooding – causes, effects, how engineers have created solutions.  8th grade honors biology students investigate droughts, concentrating on trouble spots in the Western US, Israel & the Middle East, and Africa.  They also look at causes, effects, & possible solutions.  Then we have a Simchat Beit HaShoava – the biblical Water Libation ceremony which took place during Sukkot in Temple times, with students singing, dancing, juggling, filling pools with golden pitchers, etc.

Elul is here. It represents a chance for heightened introspection, an opportunity to do teshuva and improve our lives, before the “Days of Awe,” the days of judgment, the “High holidays” of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The shofar is blown every morning (except on Shabbat) in synagogues during the month of Elul to awaken us from slumber, to remind us to consider where we are in our lives and to urge us to make positive changes.

How should we respond to Elul today? How should we respond when we hear reports almost daily of severe, often record-breaking, heat waves, droughts, wildfires, floods, and storms; when atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have reached 400 parts per million (ppm) for the first time in human history, far above the 350 ppm that climate experts believe is safe, when polar ice caps and glaciers are melting far faster than projections of climate experts; when some climatologists are warning that we could be close to a tipping point when climate change could spiral out of control with disastrous consequences, unless major changes are soon made; when we appear to also be on the brink of major food, water, and energy scarcities; and when, despite all of the above, so many people are in denial, in effect “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic as we approach a giant iceberg”?

I believe that we should make it a priority to do all that we can to awaken the world to the dangers and the urgency of doing everything possible to shift our imperiled planet to a sustainable path. We should urge that tikkun olam (the healing and repair of the world) be a central focus in all aspects of Jewish life today.

We should contact rabbis, Jewish educators, and other Jewish leaders and urge that they increase awareness of the threats and how Jewish teachings can be applied to avert impending disasters. We should write letters to editors, call talk shows, question politicians, and in every other way possible, stress that we can’t continue the policies that have been so disastrous.

The afternoon service for Yom Kippur includes the book of Jonah, who was sent by God to Nineveh to urge the people to repent and change their evil ways in order to avoid their destruction. Today the whole world is Nineveh, in danger of annihilation and in need of repentance and redemption, and each one of us must be a Jonah, with a mission to warn the world that it must turn from greed, injustice, and idolatry, so that we can avoid a global catastrophe.

Richard H. Schwartz, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus of College of Staten Island, author of Judaism and Vegetarianism, Who Stole My Religion? Revitalizing Judaism and Applying Jewish Values to Help Heal Our Imperiled Planet, other books, and 200 articles at JewishVeg.com/schwartz, President Emeritus, Jewish Vegetarians of North America (www.JewishVeg.com); President, Society Of Ethical and Religious Vegetarians (SERV), and associate producer of A SACRED DUTY (www.aSacredDuty.com).

I started with Jewcology while working with an organization called Faiths United for Sustainable Energy, which unfortunately had to close its doors a few years back.  Though that organization I was able to meet a wide range of people affiliated with various religious organizations who cared deeply for the environment.  Through FUSE, individuals from different religious backgrounds were able to come together and collaborate in an effort to be good stewards of the planet.  I think the same applies to Judaism as, which is a very large tent containing a wide range of viewpoints.  If we as Jews can come together in order to share and exchange ideas, thoughts, and experiences in connection with  environmental  advocacy, activities, events, and Jewish teaching, we can create an even stronger Jewish environmental movement, in hopes of passing down a more sustainable world to the next generation, like my new son.

Please feel free to comment on this post or send me emails directly and I am always happy to discuss.  After all, that is the entire purpose of Jewcology.

I wish everyone a happy and sweet New Year.

The meteorologists predicted a possible heavy rainstorm and suggested bringing an umbrella to work.  But as I drove home from an interfaith conference, I got a call from my husband announcing: “ You’ll have to swim home – everything is flooded here.” My heart stopped beating for a minute when I heard this, realizing that all my rabbinic books and papers, many photograph albums including those from my parents’ lives in pre-Holocaust Europe, all our children’s albums and  memorabilia, my father’s award-winning black and white mounted photos, and beautiful maple wood furniture which pre-dated me – all that was DOWN THERE!

But for now, I had to focus on getting home somehow – and indeed, the roadblocks on the main streets and highways were everywhere, with 12 feet of water at a nearby highway underpass near our home. Parking the car at a school several blocks away, I trudged through knee-deep water, only to find my husband standing waist-deep  in the middle of the lake created on our street, valiantly trying to hold back the debris so the storm sewers could drain in front of our house.  All the basements in our small suburb and several other surrounding ones had flooded with 3-5 feet of contaminated water. The irony of it all only hit me two days later when the curbsides where piled high with water-logged garbage – our community was nationally  known for being a leader in recycling ! – yet now was contributing to a huge increase of  landfill acreage with all these destroyed belongings.

Like Noah, I looked for signs of a renewal of life and dry land. This morning I found my “white dove” in the shape of the humongous white hydrangea trees and bushes and the fragrant white lily hostas blooming expansively in front of my house. Our garden did remind me that life  goes on and there is beauty and hope to be found around us, in just letting things go naturally.

As we enter the month of Elul, reflecting on what this all means and where we can improve our lives – and also entering the year of Shmita, of releasing the land to rest – I find several clear messages coming through:

First: Live simply and examine  what you are “attached” to.

Second: We have had an Oral Tradition accompanying our Written Law – perhaps it is time for us to focus on this in a new way, relying on our memories to tell the stories, archiving what is really important on computer memory sticks, and relying on the vast internet libraries instead of creating our own paper jungles at home.

Third: Thank and show appreciation for our neighbors, friends, and families for whatever ways they support us; be on the lookout constantly for  ways to help others, quietly and in advance of a request.

Fourth: While we never can fully understand the ways of God, we  know that if we truly rely on God’s help and direction, it will come; let us be patient and trusting as our ancestors were when they could not plant for an entire year. We will survive – and even prosper!

I resonated deeply with a spiritual writing that described the personal journey of a young man who made meaningful contributions to help alleviate suffering, first locally and then he volunteered in Peru with a health organization performing basic life-saving measures for the most needy. He realized that he could not SAVE them all, that whatever he does is a small amount given the needs and intensity of the impoverishment and sickness of those in dire circumstances. And his conclusion is similar to mine—that one cannot effect major changes, but we can become more aware that individuals in pain and need require compassionate responses. He called it a “ministry of silence”—being there, being present. I was motivated anew and started to participate in healing services for homeless people in my community in order to be a witness to their lives, to their small steps to heal, to be present as they were receiving some comfort and momentary relief during the service in which I participated. One homeless woman said to me — “it mattered to me that you were here” — that comment committed me to be there regularly.

My involvement with a Jewish inmate (writing him for 9 years of his incarceration) meant helping him in a variety of ways in his re-entry into society after years of extreme deprivation of basic human decency, civility and concern, and consequently, he lacked the life skills that would enable him in succeeding. Being his “big sister” and listening to him and his travails and providing some financial assistance gave him an opportunity to acclimate somewhat to life on the outside (“I am physically out of prison but my mind is still shackled from the abuses”). There are few Schweitzers and Paul Farmers capable of performing their amazingly impactful service to humanity but there are endless opportunities to alleviate the hopelessness and abject suffering of individuals in our midst. We can offer a smile, and heartfelt caring that expresses joy when good things happen to them and offering advice and empathy when the challenges cannot be faced alone– communicating that “I am here now with you on your journey as you face and cope with life’s extreme difficulties.”

Participating in a weekly Buddhist meditation group adds to my sense of teshuvah, as it prepares me to practice deep listening, offering new ways to respond with compassion and kindness and caring by being mindfully present. My deep seated Jewish values and traditions inform how I address the pressing societal ills and illusive peace as I learn again and again to be present a little more each year.

Maxine Lyons, retired community educator, is currently CMM (Cooperative Metropolitan Ministries) board member and co-chair of CMM’s RUAH Spirituality Programs, active participant in the ALEPH prison pen pal program (“connecting Jews on the outside with Jews on the inside”), member of Temple Beth Zion, Brookline, and joyful wife of 37 years and mother of two accomplished and wonderful thirty somethings.

The world seems a little topsy turvy these days. A plane missing. 223 girls kidnapped in Nigeria. 3 teen agers kidnapped and murdered in Israel. A plane shot out of the sky. Israel in Gaza. Rockets in Israel. Too many children killed in the streets of Chicago. Too many deaths. When does it stop?

In the Fox River Valley, Illinois, after a punishing winter of epic proportions, it is nice to be outside. Six congregations, part of the nascent Prairie Jewish Coalition, sponsored the Topsy Turvy bus.

What is a topsy turvy bus? It is a school bus, bright yellow, with half of another school bus on top, welded together and running entirely on used food oil. It is a project of Hazon to draw attention to climate change.

Draw attention it does. You have never seen anything like it. Part school bus, part RV, part camper, five  people (and two support staff) are driving this bus from Colorado to Isabella Friedman Retreat Center in Connecticut.  Inside the bus there are sleeping quarters, a kitchen, storage space and even a library!

Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry’s commissioned the bus. The first tour raised awareness of wasteful spending at the Pentagon. Maybe this Topsy Turvy bus can bring peace! The second tour promoted the White House Organic Farm project. So it makes sense that on a sunny, Sunday afternoon, my congregation, Kneseth Israel, and Pushing the Envelope Farm have come together to host this event.

The residents, drivers, educators engaged all ages who turned out. There were yummy blueberry smoothies made by a bicycle blender. Even better vegan chocolate chip cookies made with three different models of solar cookers. This led to an interesting debate about whether you could use a solar cooker to cook a chicken for Shabbat.

The solar cooking and the bicycle smoothies remind me that I want to install a solar ner tamid, eternal light at our synagogue.  The brainchild of Rabbi Everett Gendler, one of the first Jewish environmentalists, Temple Emanuel of the Merrimack Valley installed the first one in 1978. It raises awareness about the power of the sun and the need to protect our environment, to be caretakers with G-d, in this glorious creation..

People could tour Pushing the Envelope Farm, owned by Rabbi Fred Margulies and his wife Trisha who built the farm from spare acreage on their Continental Envelope Company land in Geneva, IL. They are using it primarily as a teaching farm, with programs for schools, synagogues, churches and scout troops. With 14 acres, there is an organic CSA, various crops and farm animals.  A portion of everything they grow goes to the nearby Northern Illinois Food Bank.

The kids who came loved playing with the chickens and the goats. They loved making their own smoothies and solar cooked cookies. I loved seeing the signs in English, Hebrew, Spanish. And while the bees are critically important, to sustainability and our celebrations of Rosh Hashanah, I gave them a wide berth as I hiked by.

But maybe what I loved most is how this Topsy Turvey bus got all of us—from six congregations and from two years old to eighty, outside on a beautiful, summer day. It would seem that the world is not so Topsy Turvey. Maybe there can even be peace.

Rabbi Margaret Frisch Klein is the rabbi of Congregation Kneseth Israel in Elgin, IL, and the author of A Climbing Journey Toward Yom Kippur. She blogs as the Energizer Rabbi, at http://www.theenergizerrabbi.org.

A memory: Our newborn is up again. I turn to the clock. It’s 4:25 am. Less than three hours since she last awoke. My husband and I are exhausted, and we lie quietly for a few moments, willing our daughter back to sleep. But her cries are persistent. Who knows if she’s hungry, cold, or simply distressed and looking for comfort?

Regardless, we’ve reached our “give-her-a-moment” limit; there’s only so long one can ignore an infant baby’s cries. My husband grabs for his glasses, makes his way to the

nursery, and returns with our loosely swaddled howling bundle. He lays her beside me and her whimpers subside. She begins to nurse. We are calmed. At that moment, there is no more peaceful sound than the blissful rhythm of our baby sucking.

­‐-­‐-­‐-­‐-­‐-­‐-­‐-­‐-­‐-­‐-­‐-­‐-­‐-­‐-­‐-­‐-­‐-­‐-­‐

The calf is born. Cold and disoriented, its mother nestles close to provide warmth; she guides her baby’s mouth toward her udders. The calf suckles and then falls asleep by its mother.

The mother and child remain this way, comforted, nurtured by each other’s presence. The calf awakes and drinks more of the colostrum, or early milk, from its mother. This liquid gold is rich in antibodies, essential for the health and growth of the baby calf, but not fit for human consumption. Within 24 hours, the calf has done its job, drunk all the colostrum. The cow’s milk fills her udders. This milk, unlike the colostrum, is valuable and will be collected for humans.

It is time; a farmhand waits until mother and baby are sleeping side-by-side, lifts the baby to its feet and nudges it away. The unnecessary cost has been removed; this calf, like all the others on this farm, is separated permanently from her mother. This calf will never again drink its mother’s milk.

Neighbors awake. They hear strange noises: indescribably, inhuman, and unrecognizable. The sounds are clearly coming from creatures in distress. Between midnight and 7:00 am, at least four neighbors alert the police. Officers are dispatched to the dairy farm to investigate the source of the eerie, troubling sound. Assurances are given that all is well.

This is just business as usual. The calf must not drink the profits. The cow and calf’s time together has ended. But maternal-child bonds are not easily broken. The separation causes extreme anxiety and suffering. The bellows emanate from the mother cow lamenting the separation from her baby. Gates will be check to ensure she is securely penned. It is not uncommon for a mother cow to trek for miles in search of her calf. Sadly, this pregnancy, birth, separation, commercial milk production cycle which is forced upon the cows continues. Lactation will not occur otherwise.

Dairy products are suffused with the suffering of a mother and a child separated and unable to soothe one another. I hear their cries and cannot ignore them.

Diana G. is a plant based nutrition/cooking teacher with a BA in nutritional sciences from Cornell, and an MA in Education from Harvard. She is a mother of three and an animal rights advocate. Her article was inspired by this article and this book.

by Rabbi Katy Z. Allen

I stand on the beach.
Waves–
     I hear them,
see them,
rising, falling,
splashing, foaming.

Deep within me 
  waves form,
  rise up,
are released,
unite with the ocean waves.

Throughout my body
  sadness….
grief….
despair….
engulf me.

The Earth is suffering.

I cannot simply stand,
sit,
lie,
relax.
Act, I must,
driven by my grief, 
by my love,
by the waves,
in order to live with myself,
with the Holy One of Blessing–
who is able to quiet waves,
in the sea,
in my soul–
who continues to command me,
always.

.אני עומדת על חוף הים

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 also the co-convener of the Jewish Climate Action Network and the co-creator of Gathering in Grief: The Israel / Gaza Conflict.

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>

This is a great resource to get you started: http://www.jewcology.com/content/view/Do-It-Yourself-Body-Care-for-the-New-Year

I’m not blogging much lately due to certain matters going on in my life. Sorry, I know this is supposed to be a weekly post but life happens….

Anyway, here’s this week’s tip. This applies if you live in a place where there’s a central dumpster where people dump their garbage: When you take out the garbage, keep your eyes open for things that might not really be garbage but perhaps someone was just trying to get rid of the item without it occurring to them that maybe someone else could use it. If you find something useful, go ahead and take it home! For example, yesterday I “rescued” a chair that turned out to be still in decent condition, and comfortable, too. I recommend cleaning such finds before using them, as you don’t know where they’ve been….If you find something that could be useful for someone but not you, you can “rescue” it anyway and donate it to Goodwill or another organization of your preference that takes such things. (Another idea is to try putting it up for sale, say on Craigslist or eBay, but keep in mind that you can’t always be confident that you can accurately describe the condition of the item and again, you have no idea where it’s been….) That way you can help the environment while simultaneously helping an organization and also someone who could use the item in question!

If you see that there’s an ongoing problem of people leaving perfectly good items, you might want to call the problem to the attention of your building/apartment complex manager (or whoever else is in charge). I called mine today and left a message with the following ideas: 1. They could write a notice so people are aware that there’s a Goodwill nearby. (That applies to my situation; you could customize this for your own situation.) Have them point out that other people might be able to make use of the item, even if the current owner is done with it. 2. They could designate a place, apart from the dumpster(s), where people could leave stuff they don’t want that’s still good, and people could come and take what they want. I didn’t get a response yet but at least I tried.

We’re nearing a time when the Earth will not provide as bountifully as it has in the past. In exchange for a loss of resources, I believe the Earth is pleading for us humans to return to ourselves, our deep souls, so we recognize a bounty that lives within us. Could this lead to the feeling of fertility in the human spirit, we may extend the times of plenty.

Answering this call is not easy. We cannot stop deadlines so we may each have the time return to ourselves as a form of resiliency. It’s a necessary evil to take this time. We may feel that we’re missing out on other activities, events, or conversations, or that we are not getting done as much work as we need to do. Yet there are moments in each day that we can seek the quiet retreat and go a little deeper, find a little more space.

Since I received the Elul writing project, I've decided to practice coming back to myself and following my instincts around taking time to be alone. The result has been time after work dancing, painting, hanging art, swimming, hiking, and listening! Who knew I had so much to say to myself. Some hangouts have been hard; I haven’t been the best of company at those times. But I exit these periods of time alone with a better understanding of me and my method of interacting with the world. I tune in with what my body wants, my spirit and my tongue for speech…I react with kindness to my friends and family, and say what I mean, say what I need. As a wise woman once told me, me are always working to maintain our ‘neutral.’

I think our souls are like bread dough that needs warmth to rise: our souls desire the heat of our beings to nurture our internal culture. At some point we get punched down as a test to our abilities, and need to remind ourselves of our importance, kindness, and intelligence to rise back up, overflowing the bowl. We bake the loaf, swallow a chapter of life, and start another.

Let’s bake bread with those around us—encourage our friends to take space to nurture themselves and warm the internal culture that is their ‘soul bread.’ For this New Year, let us practice feeding ourselves, for we can only effectively exchange light with others when we do.

Molly Bajgot is a senior undergraduate student at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst studying Sustainable Food and Farming with a concentration in Food Systems and Production. She is a strong believer in holistic systems and loves to cook, sing loudly, and live in the Pioneer Valley.

Update: Zeke is in Cannon Beach, OR. I biked with him to Florence, which was really fun, where he met up with some friends who will continue on with him to Seattle. Making shabbat together at Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park was wonderful. We had a homemade challah from my wife toasted over the campfire (lit before shabbos of course). The rocky Oregon coast and gigantic sand dunes are so beautiful- we both felt very grateful to live in such an incredible world. We've had some great talks about climate change, religion, and everything else we could think of. And played a lot of Botticelli, Geography, and Ghost. And, of course, in keeping with Jewish tradition, we ate a lot, especially bagels with cream cheese and smoked salmon, which is really good in coastal California and Oregon.

Update: So far Zeke has biked somewhere between 600 and 700 miles. He is tired but still full of enthusiasm. He is here in Berkeley for a rest day and we are looking forward to celebrating shabbat together. Then he will continue on with his grandpa up the coast. Just like the daughters of Tzlofchad, Zeke is fighting climate change to make sure his generation can receive their inheritance- a world where we do our best to care for God's creation!

My son Zeke is 12. He set out Sunday, June 16, on a 1,500 mile bike ride to fight climate change and to mark his coming bar mitzva. Accompanied by friends and family, he will spend about 4 weeks riding up the Pacific Coast from the Mexican border to Astoria, OR, camping and staying with friends along the way. I'll be with him for a little over a week, from Fort Bragg, CA to Florence, OR. This ride is the fulfillment of a year of his dreaming, scheming, and planning to make it happen. It is a self-organized and self-supported ride. He is using the ride to raise money for the Sierra Club's work to fight climate change, and is already having great success. So far he is having a great time, soaking up the views of the ocean and the hills. Peak moments include a tour of the restored Huntington Beach Wetlands from Gordon Smith of the Huntington Beach Wetlands Conservancy and his great-grandmother delivering two kosher Polish dogs from Jeff's in LA to him on the bike trail in Marina Del Rey.

Sounds uncannily similar to the Bar Mitzva and the Beast, doesn't it? (If you don't know what I am referring to, it is a book by Matt Biers Ariel about his son's ride across the country for his bar mitzva and to fight climate change.)

Zeke loves bike riding. It started a few years ago with riding a mile to school. Zeke soon declared his intention to bike to Alaska and through a series of day trips we made it several hundred miles north to Arcata. This year he decided that his bar mitzva social action project/excuse to go on a great adventure would be riding from the Mexican border to Vancouver. He got the maps (Adventure Cycling) and has done lots of the planning and preparations himself, including some awesome training rides in the San Francisco Bay Area where we live. This year, we made it up the local trio of mountains- Diablo, Tam, and Hamilton- although we never figured out which corresponded to our local Mt. Gerizim, Mt Ebal, or Mt. Sinai. We also did a century ride, although it took us about 10 hours of riding. I suppose as Jews we should do a 120-mi ride- that's what Moses would have done!

If you know about the Pacific Coast, you know that prevailing winds blow from north to south, so Zeke is doing this the hard way, apparently to exemplify the whole "stiff necked people" thing (we tried to talk him into going the other way). Does this have anything else to do with Judaism? I'd like to think so- we have always talked about Judaism's environmental wisdom, from the sabbatical year to shooing the mother bird from her nest. But maybe he just loves biking and wants to protect the environment.

Here is a link to the journal he has started about the ride:

https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/?o=1&doc_id=12307&v=c.

Below is his fundraising letter, if you would care to contribute and/or circulate it:

Hello Family, Friends, Strangers,
Have you ever traveled 1900 miles? Probably and you probably were flying in a plane.
Now imagine trying that distance in 5 weeks on a bicycle. Talk about crazy, right?
Well this summer I will do my best to ride those miles from San Diego to Vancouver to raise money for the Sierra Club's Climate Change Campaign (I have so far organized from San Diego to Northern Oregon, 1500 miles). I'll be riding with friends and family, camping out, staying at friend's houses, and having a great time. The purpose of my ride is twofold: first of all an awesome adventure, and second of all to demonstrate that the world could be a different place if we want it to, with people travelling in a way that is better for themselves and the planet.
Would you like to help me? You can come along and/or you can help me raise the money I want to donate to the Sierra Club. The Sierra Club is an organization that is trying to help stop global warming. They are trying to shut down coal plants in the U.S.A and are protesting the Keystone XL pipeline. It is really important to stop sea level rise and climate change, or else it won't snow in Minnesota and Kansas will become beachfront property. Well, maybe not that extreme. But, you know what I mean. In all seriousness, I feel I should do everything I can to reduce the threats to many plant and animal species who will suffer from global warming. Also, global warming would be disastrous to humans, wiping out most of Holland and Belgium, destroying Delaware, and taking out more than half of Manhattan and at least 3/4 of Long Island, which are only a few of the disasters our planet is facing. My goal on the ride to help raise money to help the Sierra Club and raise awareness of the danger Earth is in from global warming. I am asking if you would pledge for me. You can do one flat rate or by mile. The choice is yours. Since I am doing this with friends and family, and not as part of an organized ride, every dollar you pledge will go straight to the Sierra Club's campaign- not a penny will go to pay for the ride.
If you are thinking about riding with me part (or all!) of the way, send me an email and I'll send you my itinerary. Even joining me for a day or two would be great! If you are able to donate to the Sierra Club, you can send a check to
San Francisco Bay Chapter Sierra Club
2530 San Pablo Ave. Suite I
Berkeley, CA 94702-2000
or go to their website, here: http://sanfranciscobay.sierraclub.org/donate/
Melanie Jolly, the Development Director of the SF Bay Area Sierra Club chapter, is going to help me track the donations people send in for the ride. If you could forward the receipt you get to her at melanie@sfbaysc.org noting that the donation is inspired by my ride, she will be able to track them. Or if you want to make a pledge per mile, and then donate when you find out how far I make it, just email me back and let me know your pledge.

Sincerely,

Zeke

During the time surrounding the High Holiday period, I had the opportunity to speak to Grade 8 Science classes at a number of the Toronto Jewish Day Schools.

My talks are generally drawn from materials I have access to as a result of being trained by Al Gore as a Climate Reality Project volunteer presenter. Recently, Mr. Gore hosted a 24 hour effort, 1 for each time zone in the world, where local speakers would explain climate change and global warming in the global and local context.

What was new this time were some of the videos and visuals used to get a clear message across, that the time to debate scientific findings is over, and the time for action was now.

The message I wanted to impart on these Grade 8 science students had to be carefully crafted to balance the challenge of climate change and the belief that something can be done about it.

The key message that emerged dealt with questioning and looking for proof around statements and assertions being made on the topic and how to differentiate between propaganda and reality.

Through the videos and slides selected, the conversation with these students helped them understand why it was important to become more literate on the topic of climate change, understand how to put the issue into a Jewish context, and then find some way to ensure measurable energy consumption reduction action going forward.

Fortunately, the schools which invited me to present had also discovered that the best way to learn was to work together. These schools had recently agreed to submit a joint proposal to the ongoing ClimateSpark Social Venture Challenge (http://bit.ly/climatespark-svc).

The focus of their joint Inter-School Conservation Quantification proposal was to find creative ways for students and teachers to quantify measurable energy consumption at school and to become more skilled at quantifying energy consumption at home.

The first level of discovery was expected to be within the individual school branch, looking at real numbers around the consumption of electricity, water and natural gas and developing an understanding of what was actually driving the consumption.

As the numbers were being gathered and visualized, the Grade 8 students were also asked to look at what other students aged 12 – 18 were doing, specific to activities for which energy consumption reduction could be quantified.

From there, the proposed effort could go in 2 directions either into the home or to the sister campus of each of the schools. Once the North / South intra-school effort was in place, the next step envisioned would be an inter-school effort testing out community electronic brainstorming.

The current proposal needs to execute with the Greater Toronto Area. The next logical direction for the proposal would be an inter-country effort linking Grade 8 students in Toronto and Eilat, Israel using the fact based approach and electronic brainstorming to develop a stronger understanding of the differences and similarities to the problem and approaches to solving it.

This is one of almost 50 proposals currently competing in ClimateSpark. On November 1, the schools will discover whether they make the final 20.

winegust@gmail.ca

San Francisco, CA (July 22, 2011) – Kosher Crew, founded by Ari, motivates Jewish teens to become active conservationists by taking part in tikkun olam, or “healing the world.” Inspired by two summer internships with the Student Conservation Association, he runs fun, peer-led outings to do hands-on environmental work. Kosher Crew’s goal is to motivate participants to be active and healthy and to make a positive impact on the environment while encompassing core values of Judaism. He wanted to create something for Jewish youth because so many environmental events are on Saturdays which they are unable to attend. Participation, however, is open to anyone who would like to be involved.

He has organized many projects to start and support community-based agriculture in order to improve the mental and physical health of the community, provide opportunities to compost, and improve air and water quality.

He has also fostered meaningful partnerships with other local organizations in order to build bridges between community leaders.

Ari has led trips to clear invasive species, pick up litter, and create green spaces in urban Atlanta.

“I will always turn to nature for inspiration and solace and always plan on being involved in conservation projects,” says Ari.

Every year since 2003, Action For Nature (AFN), a U.S.-based non-profit, has recognized young people ages 8-16 who are taking important steps to solve tough environmental problems. Youth from countries around the world send in their stories and explain their work. A panel of judges including experts in environmental science, biology and education determines the year's winners.

He has organized many projects to start and support community-based agriculture in order to improve the mental and physical health of the community, provide opportunities to compost, and improve air and water quality.

He has also fostered meaningful partnerships with other local organizations in order to build bridges between community leaders.

Ari has led trips to clear invasive species, pick up litter, and create green spaces in urban Atlanta.

“I will always turn to nature for inspiration and solace and always plan on being involved in conservation projects,” says Ari.

Since 2003, Action For Nature has recognized over 100 youth for outstanding environmental actions.

http://www.actionfornature.org/eco-hero-awards/past-winners/2011-winners

{Cutting a red oak for Shiitakes, preparing community dinner, transplanting tomatos, flattening steel struts to build our geodesic dome}

The first week we saw the Peah garden on our tour of the farm. A few days later, we were thrilled when given the chance to plant this year’s vegetable crop in it. Our educators from the Jewish Farm School not only taught us about the technique in which these plants needed to be planted, but they also taught us about the beauty of the Jewish agricultural law of Peah, leaving the corners of our field for the hungry. It was incredible to see this effective educational tool turn into a dense sea of green after just a few days of rain, and we all felt a great sense of satisfaction knowing our actions would one day feed local hungry people. The next week, a group of Jewish home-schooled children came to the farm for Jewish Farm School's Youth Program. As we planted trees a few yards away in our orchard, we were proud to see these children learning about Peah in the garden we helped plant.

{planting our grape arbor, making granola bars, just being kids, planting in the High Tunnel at our neighbors, Glynwood Farm}

Another memorable experience from our internship was inoculating red oak logs with shitake spores. We learned the value of hard work as we cut three-foot logs from a felled red oak tree in the forest in the pouring rain. The next week we drilled holes in the logs and poured in sterilized woodchips mixed with shitake spores. The mushrooms will take a year to sprout, but we felt that this was a way to give back to the farm community that had welcomed us so warmly. We hope that these mushrooms will help the farm’s amazing chef continue to cook his mind blowing vegetarian and vegan food next year.

{Sourdough Bread Baking and Text Study with Rabbi Jacob Fine….on ABC television, planting sorrel next to an apple tree in our permaculture orchard}

{Dome is REAL!}

Now that our internship is coming to an end, we plan on taking the skills we have learned back to our communities. We have each mapped out ways in which we hope to add to our peers’ knowledge and understanding of the deep seeded connection between Judaism and ecology. If Eden Village and the Jewish Farm School have taught us anything, it is that education is the key to create change. We would like to take this opportunity to reiterate our thanks to everybody on the farm for opening our minds to the beauty of our world and for awakening within us the potential to mend the world and environment.

Best,

Coby Sloyer and Jacob Vivek Einstein