To Till and to Tend

While end-of-year college doings may not seem like a Jewish issue, I see all opportunities for Bal Taschit as relevant for our COEJL community, especially since the Jewish community produces so many students and academics.
As any baby boomer parent can tell you, this generation of students has crammed a remarkably huge amount more stuff into their dorm rooms than we did - even though the miniaturization of college life is better now with Ipods and laptops.  The deal now is that your order your kids' "necessities" through a big box store and pick them up at the closest store to your campus.  This is incredibly easy at the beginning of the term, but poses enormous challenges at the end of term.  Typical problems are lamps and rugs - too large and too expensive to ship anywhere, but not provided by res life.  With very minimal storage options, lots of microwaves, swivel chairs, mini-refrigerators and scads of clothes have gone straight into dumpsters.  Where I live, the day the Penn students leave is practically a holiday West Philadelphia Dumpster Diver Day.
These past few years, mechanisms have been developed to help students be less wasteful and divert these perfectly functional items from landfill, saving colleges money and going easier on the planet.  Dump 'n Run is a national organization that advises students and administration on how to run such programs.  One nice twist is that many of them now store and resell these items to the next crop of students in the fall, with the proceeds going to charity.  Many virtues are happening here: more responsible behavior by students, when the options are in place.  High quality goods being REUSED,  (higher on the resource ladder than recycling, which actually requires energy to break items down; most of the donated items aren't recyclable anyway).  And this program saves incoming students money, by selling used items for cheap (saving resources at the same time), as well as raising proceeds for charity.  Yasher koach to all involved!
Below is the info my freshman daughter forwarded me, from her college, FYI:

1.  The PODs
PODs [portable on demand receptacles] are disbursed across campus.  Feel free to donate items to the PODs and if there's something in a POD that you can use, it's yours for the taking.

2.  WASTE NOT!

 

Consider donating items to the Waste Not! Item Collection and Tag Sale

 

During reading week, finals week, and senior week, areas will be marked off in the reshalls where you can leave stuff. If you live a program house, woodframe house, or apartment, you can call or email to arrange an item pickup!

Donate the following items:

clothing, furniture, refrigerators, microwaves, rugs, lamps, electronics, printers, alarm clocks, phones, textbooks, course packs, books for classes, other books, posters, dorm decorations, bedding, dishes, hangers, mirrors, CFL bulbs, electric tea kettles, food*, cleaning supplies*, laundry detergent*, brooms

 

*you can donate partially used items as long as they are sealed and in usable condition.

 

The items collected this semester will be sold back to the community at the beginning of next semester. Proceeds from the sale will go to local charities.

 

Check out the website for more information: http://www.wesleyan.edu/wsa/eon/wastenot

A common line one hears in religious circles is “God works in mysterious ways.”  Is it possible to conclude that when God realized people were going to love eating large, long-lived fishes (which were, after all, created on the 5^th day) to the point of oblivion, God actually made us humans pollute the waters so that eating these fish would be toxic to our bodies and we would moderate our consumption?

Probably not. While the notion may be laughable, it does shed light onto the occasional irony that is human induced pollution. While more often pollution and climate change work to endanger and eliminate species from our planet, in this case could our destructiveness save several? 

Some background information: Half of the planet’s atmospheric mercury is human generated, most to produce power that fuels our lives.  As the hunger for sushi has grown and globalization aids all fish exports, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that over 70% of the world’s fish species are either fully exploited or depleted. 

The general public is only beginning to learn what pregnant and breast-feeding women (and some others) have known for years: many fishes have mercury, and it is dangerous to eat too much as mercury can get passed along through the placenta and breast milk. 

Though children and fetuses are at the highest risk, because their brains and nervous system are still forming, it has only recently been published that the quantities of mercury in the fishes we eat can be harmful to adults.  The Environmental Defense Fund has a useful report on mercury, from which I excerpt:

“Mercury exposure can also harm adults. Symptoms can include numbness, burning or tingling of the extremities (lips, fingers, toes); fatigue; weakness; irritability; shyness; loss of memory and coordination; tremors; and changes in hearing and blurred vision. Extremely high mercury levels can permanently damage an adult's brain and kidneys, or even lead to circulatory failure.”

Last January, the New York Times broke the story, “High Levels of Mercury Found in Tuna Sushi,” inspired talk, blog posts and more news reports.   Maybe people will be motivated to care for their bodies and eat less mercury heavy, over-fished fish?  Maybe, just maybe, one day our fisheries will be healthy, and eating the fish from them will be healthier, too.

Some Really Great Resources:
My favorite: Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch – a complete guide of all fishes and their health/environmental implications
Environmental Defense Fund’s Guide of “How many meals (of which fish) are safe to eat each month”
Hilarious analysis of the news threads from Newsweek, “Would You Like Mercury With Your Sushi?”

 

Tsimtsum, the Hebrew word for self-contraction, is a Kabbalistic, theological term which describes the Creator's self-contraction to make space for creation itself. (Hope you agree with how I boiled that really big concept down!) But I like to think of it in human behavioral terms, a goal or midah (virtue) to guide my actions. We certainly are not going to correct planetary crisis by virtuous actions alone - we need smart policy to go down that path - but virtuous acts add up and make a huge difference, one by one.
The kavanah, or intent, of one's actions can frame them in a spiritual way and give a positive spin to actions that might be perceived as onerous or negative. Curricula on Jewish Environmentalism always stress Bal Tashcit, the avoidance of waste. Thinking of not wasting act as tsimtsum gives a different flavor.
In secular culture we use similar language when we say someone "takes up a lot of space" - usually about their social persona. Tsimtsum can be both about taking up less air space in interactions but also about materially consuming fewer resources. So many opportunities to reign ourselves in a little!

• Carrying a set of utensils and mug, so you avoid disposables.
• Walking instead of driving.
• Staying put instead of jetting off on short vacations to distant places.
• Eating modestly - a vegetarian, or at least a meat-reductionist diet, saves many more resources for others.
• Not flushing the toilet every time you use it - quite a departure from American norms, but especially if you live alone, very sensible.
• Not buying bottled water, but taking the time to fill a bottle with tap water.
• Air drying laundry.
• Not accumulating too many clothes, shoes, or pocketbooks.
• Not leaving food on your plate. (In our culture of gargantuan proportions and excessive food at social events, this one is really challenging.)
• Not leaving lights and stoves on for Shabbat and instead devising a more environmentally responsible method of providing for your Sabbath needs.
• Carrying a name tag and reusing it at conferences and community events.

I'm sure the list of your tsimtsum moments is long, as well.
Share some! Let's see how long a list we can make. Together we can have LESS impact! Which is a way of actually having an impact, of course.

image from http://mysticlink.blogspot.com/ - "Pardes+HaTorah

In a rash attempt to alleviate this discomfort, our political leaders have proposed a "gas tax holiday."  For three months, we will (theoretically) spend about 18 cents less per gallon of fuel, or about 2 dollars each visit to the gas station.  Over the course of the summer holiday, the blog Autopia reports that this proposal will save the average American about $30.  Of course, it's unlikely we'll actually see this "tax break" at all, because oil companies will simply raise the price of gas by almost the size of the tax cut.  Americans will continue to pay roughly $3.61 a gallon – but now, our nation will lose billions in potential tax revenue, which could be used to maintain our nation's infrastructure.   And at a time when unemployment rates are already rising, the proposed gas tax holiday could cost more than 300,000 jobs.

The flaws of this approach are clear.  Automobiles are the second largest contributor to US greenhouse gas emissions. Shouldn't we be trying to reduce the amount Americans drive – rather than creating incentives for people to drive more?  And what better way to incentivize carpooling and public transportation than to raise the price of gas?  In fact, the market is already creating its own incentives, with AAA reporting a decline in miles traveled and sales of compact and subcompact cars reaching record highs last month – a trend Ford's chief sales analyst has called "the most dramatic segment shift" in his 31-year career. And if we want to encourage the use of clean-burning alternatives to fossil fuels and coal, shouldn't we give tax breaks for those alternatives?  Sadly, our leaders are painfully misdirected. They are offering a tax break on the behavior they hope to discourage – yet, as I described in my February 12 post, they have failed to extend tax breaks on activities they should reward. 

More than 2000 years ago, our ancestors fell victim to a similar scheme.  Left alone in the wilderness at the base of Mount Sinai, the Israelites built a golden calf in a desperate attempt to find security.  The calf, of course, did not offer any answers.  To the contrary, when Moses descended from the mountain, he rebuked the Israelites and repeated his journey to retrieve the Ten Commandments.  The calf was an exercise in futility – a false prophet that never brought its intended reward.

Today, it is our leaders who offer a false prophet – suggesting $30 could ease a troubled economy or eliminate our dependence on foreign extremists who control our oil markets.  Like the Israelites, we need strong leaders who can guide us through times of adversity.  We need leaders who will require our cars to drive farther on less fuel and who will support a growing transit system, who will invest in research on alternative energy and provide incentives for the people who use it.  In short, we need leaders who have the courage to introduce policies that will actually reduce our dependence on oil – so that it does not matter if prices rise. 

[For thoughtful commentary about ways to solve the fuel crisis, visit "Are Gasoline Prices Too High or Too Low" at the blog of the Friends Committee on National Legislation, "Greenlight on Washington."]
[Click here to read a letter from COEJL and a coalition of other faith organizations, businesses, construction companies, environmental organizations, investors, labor, nongovernmental organizations, public health organizations, states, trade associations and utilities seeking funding for tax breaks that matter]

Farmers’ Markets are great, but David Elcott has taken eating local to a whole new level.  This spring, he decided to tear up a section of his front lawn to create an organic community vegetable garden.  Through a guest-blog partnership with Jcarrot.org, we are excited to have David share his sacred journey towards sustainable farming with us.

 

 

I was going crazy today. Tech problems with my printer took hours. Nothing accomplished. A lousy conference call committee meeting. Exhausted. At five in the evening, I took the world into grip and, like Superman, ripped off my work clothes, put on my dirty sweats and headed out to the farm.

Okay, my “farm” is 50 x 18, torn from my front lawn which does not include my “cornfield” - a 20 x 5 plot ripped out from a different part of my lawn. I had my vegetable garden, berry patches and fruit trees in California when my kids were little. All year, crops flourished, beautiful. But New York is different – freezing cold, wet, snow – it never seemed worth it. Until I went over to the good side and realized I do not need to eat food I actually could grow that was being shipped from hemispheres and continents unknown. Michael Pollan added to my passion in describing the petroleum products I am ingesting. Strike a blow for energy freedom along with fresh produce steps away from my kitchen door. So I hauled in six cubic yards of organic topsoil, thirty bags of manure and some mushroom compost as well, spent two days with the pitchfork, the shovel, the hoe. Got everything ready to go.

 

The biggest hitch? I could not figure out when to plant. I had organic seeds that are kind of growing in my basement and some plants shipped from Petaluma (ouch, I just added a huge carbon footprint). Is it going to drop below freezing again? Is it safe to plant? Will my first New York foray into self-sustaining agriculture go bust?

 

But today, I was hungry to make something happen after a lousy work day. I checked the weather predictions and there was no sign of sub-freezing temperature (call that a weird faith statement in meteorology). So I flew out the door, took my fragile tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, a zillion different herbs, the radish, beet, basil and broccoli seeds, and dug my hands into the soil. Need I say more? Liberation of the soul; my personal revolutionary Tea Party that says we humans can no longer believe that carrots actually grow in bags at the supermarket. As I write, I am looking from my office window on to the dark soil and the beautiful green leaves—floppy eggplant leaves, small peppers, multi-colored herbs and fragrant tomatoes.

 

I hope to produce bushels more than I can eat. My plan is simple. I will invite neighbors and friends to harvest what they want whenever they want. I will leave a jar for contributions which will be given to our synagogue’s Fund for the Needy, a fair swap of fresh goodness for goodness “beyn adam l’adam” – from one human being to another.

 

The sun is about to set over the farm. My soul is content.

 

Stay posted for Part II of Sustainable Farmer, coming soon….

There has been a resurgence of interest in Sefirat HaOmer of late, as people are striving to reconnect with agricultural, natural cycles. While the Omer focuses on the maturation of the barley crop in Israel (as Liore taught a few posts ago), many of us have added a local focus as well. I live in Philadelphia and the Omer brackets a period of phenomenal greening and flowering as every dogwood and azalea struts its stuff. I love the progression of each flower and plant in a beautifully synchronized symphony of color, shape, fragrance and inflorescence.
The Omer prohibitions are explained by the season's element of anxiety: will the rain from the last season coordinate with the winds to support the new growing season? Not listening to music, not performing weddings, and not shaving or cutting hair are the most commonly observed; these restrictions end at Lag B'omer, Day 33 or the 49. (Also it is a period of semi-mourning for past losses during the Bar Kochba rebellion, but since I have to look this up every year, I'm guessing I'm not the only one that doesn't resonate with that explanation.)
Lent, the 40-Day period prior to Easter, is also a season of prohibitions for observant Christians. Eating a vegetarian diet, which included eschewing dairy products, was customary. There are theological explanations for this, but from an anthropological perspective it is likely that this was a ritualized way of making a virtue out of necessity, since in European life before the 20th century, by late winter food supplies were thinning and it was still quite a stretch before any fresh food became available. Herds had less to eat, and produced less milk as a result. This is also an explanation for celebrating dairy products on Shavuot. The milk begins to flow abundantly when the animals have more grass on which to graze!
Adding an eco-spiritual dimension to Lent is a logical step. Some observe Lent by choosing to give up something special - a food, an activity, or a habit. Forty days is a good stretch, but not forever! I was quite taken with a blog post at FeministFinance, where the author took on a Lenten Compact. The Compact is a shared commitment by a group to avoid retail purchases, in the interest of minimizing their consumption and ecological footprint. Compact Groups do this for an entire year. Their Yahoo Group is almost 9000 people, so they've got a lot of folks following this experiment. The idea is to obtain what you need by bartering, borrowing, or buying used. And of course the simplest strategy is to just be creative and do without. So much of our consumption is optional and impulsive. In addition to lowering their environmental impacts, those involved build a tight community.
It's late for this year, but I'd love to create an Omer Compact group, where for the 49 days (or at least 33!) of the Omer we would likewise commit to no purchasing or shopping for non-food items. Of course a lot of Jews do this 52 shabbatot a year, but we do more than our share of buying on the weekdays. Such commitments are self-instructive; it's an opportunity to analyze our behvaviors. Would we Omer Compacters be allowed to look at catalogs? Would we be allowed to accept packages that had been ordered BEFORE the Omer Count? The Talmudic interpretation possibilities could get really interesting!
If you're interested in organizing and participating in a 5769 Omer Pact, tell us your ideas and thoughts!

This piece was originally posted on Jewcy.com.

I go to my closet every morning, push around a lot of hangers and choose what to wear. If a favorite pair of pants is in the wash, no matter: I have another. If this black sweater doesn’t match my pants, or the occasion, or the weather, or my mood, no matter: I have another.

Yet I don’t think of myself as having too much. Good people (the kind I imagine myself to be) don’t have too much. We don’t eat too much or drink too much or spend too much or own too much or use too much.

But there it is: A closetful of plenty. I know I am not alone. America is bursting with too-muchness. So much so that we have to build special buildings just to hold the too-much stuff that won’t fit into our increasingly too-big homes.

So I am left to wonder: How did my closet get this way? If I have a lot now, then a while ago, along the road from Some to Plenty, I must have had Just Enough. When was that? Why didn’t I notice? Why didn’t I stop?

Every time we turn on the TV, surf the web, or read a magazine, the challenge stares us in the face: How much more do we need? In light of this assault, it is hard to know how to measure enough. It sounds like it could be a third grade word problem: If I have Plenty of clothes in my closet, how many would I have to give away to get back to Enough? Yet, the solution lies not in numbers, but in the spirit. It demands that I reconnect with the notion of “full,” and that I cultivate a modest but satisfying measure of Fullness.

If we could turn down our appetite thermostats—if we could become fuller sooner—we would have a head-start on solving environmental degradation. Imagine how much less damaging our lifelong footprints would be if our E-quotient, “Enough quotient,” was modestly set, and if we always stopped when it was full?

It's true that fixing the environment requires energetic research and development to bring us new technologies at an affordable price. But is also requires a renewed awareness of the blessings of sova, satisfaction, satedness, Enoughness (a word that Alice Trillin used). If we "needed" less stuff, if we wanted less stuff, there would be more resources to share and more goods to go around, which would buy more time to discover technological fixes.

Most of all, people would be happier, for we are driven to accumulate too much by a persistent, marketplace-cultivated sense of dissatisfaction in what we still don’t have, and thus what we have not yet become.

The path to Enoughness is satisfaction and pleasure in what we already possess, and who we are. In such a spiritual state, everyone—including the natural world—would win.

With bellies full of delicious breads and cereals, many have put the thoughts of Passover behind them. Yet, there is a tradition called Sefirat HaOmer – counting of the Omer – which counts each of the 50 days leading up to Shavuot.  Though rooted in daily grain offerings, rabbis transformed the Omer into a way to relive the journey from Exodus to the giving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai.

But there is a layer even more ancient.  As my grandfather (one can shep nachas from a grandparent, no?), Rabbi Jacob Milgrom (PhD) taught me years ago, the Omer also measures the passing of dangerous times, when the hot winds called hamsin (Sirocco) could blow in and destroy the season’s crops.  Hamsin is derived from the number 50 - hamishim in Hebrew and hamsun in Arabic.  This period of danger lasted 50 days, mirroring the span between Pesach and Shavuot, days which the people counted in trepidation until the danger passed.

1. Understanding the Might of Nature
The agricultural tradition of the Omer reminds us that nature has powers that are beyond our control.  Now more than ever, one of the greatest threats is the extremes in weather caused by climate change that technology has not yet solved.

2. Appreciating Nature
Shavuot is also called Chag HaBikkurim, festival of the first fruits.  As such, it is customary to adorn the synagogue with flowers and greenery. Growing up, we extended this tradition to our home where, to prepare, my siblings and I would wander in the backyard, clippers in hand, in order to convert our home into a green wonder.

3. Lowering our Carbon Emissions
Lastly, Shavuot lowers the carbon footprint of the Jewish people for two whole days with its culinary tradition – DAIRY!  Though there is no one source for this custom, there are multiple examples for Torah being compared to dairy.  A beautiful text for #2, Deuteronomy 32:13, describes God/Torah nourishing the people in this way: “God nursed (the way a mother nurses a baby) on honey from the rock.” Torah nourished the people of Israel; Torah is like divine milk. On Shavuot we not only study Torah, but eat it, too!

We would like to reconnect Shavuot with its agricultural and environmental traditions – if your community has found ways to do just that, please share the program and/or story here by commenting below.

Today is the 9^th Day, 1 week and 2 days of the Omer

Some links for Omer Study
Jewish Reconstructionist Federation’s Omer Tikkun Olam Text Study
Religious Action Center’s Social Justice Guide for Shavuot
MyJewishLearning.com Omer Section
Counting the Omer: A Tool for Nature Consciousness, Canfei Nesharim
United Synagogue – Making Each Day Count

Two weeks ago, the President announced a "momentous" global warming initiative, which essentially validated the status quo for the next two decades. As I wrote last week, this proposal misses the mark. I was not alone. As the New York Times reports, "critics — including environmentalists, scientists and lawmakers — said the effort was too little, too late." And the President's critics were not restricted to the United States. Although the President timed his remarks to kick-off a round of international climate discussions in Paris, the Agence France Press announced that those present at the meeting were universally "dismayed by the tenor" of the President's remarks. And Germany decried the speech as "a step backward."

On Capitol Hill, Representative Jay Inslee (D-Wash) dismissed the President's remarks as a "can't-do plan for a can-do people." His concern prompted Representative Inslee, along with Representative Ed Markey (D-Mass) and Henry Waxman (D-Cal) to declare four essential Principles for Global Warming Legislation. These leaders on climate change policy don't simply want to stabilize emissions in 2025 – they propose substantial reductions (15-20% of US emissions by 2020; 80% reductions by 2050). In particular, they ask the United States to introduce legislation to:

1) Reduce emissions to avoid dangerous global warming;
2) Transition America to a clean energy economy;
3) Recognize and minimize any economic impacts from global warming legislation; and
4) Aid communities and ecosystems vulnerable to harm from global warming.

I applaud Reps. Inslee, Markee and Waxman for stepping forward. Their declaration alone won't reduce US emissions. But hopefully, it will create the needed momentum to get a bill introduced in the House. If enough Members join the Principles, it will send an important message to the Committee on Energy and Commerce and to the President that the American public believes climate change is real and demands that the US respond.

Click here to read the COEJL Action Alert and urge your Representative to support the Global Warming Principles. And tell them that these Principles are just a starting point -- it's time to move beyond simply talking about climate change and to introduce legislation that makes a difference.

COEJL was part of the Jewish community's celebration of Earth Day.  Check out the post in the NJDC blog.