To Till and to Tend

The Jewish environmental movement rarely provides us with the opportunity to sing.  But Rabbi Arthur Waskow from the Shalom Center has tweaked an ol’ favorite to inspire awareness around Global Scorching, as he calls it. As he says, the song is updated for the 21st Century and the Global Climate Crisis. Melody and some words, traditional;  remainder by Rabbi Arthur Waskow Copyright (c) 2007, 2008 by Rabbi Arthur Waskow. All rights reserved.

God said to Noah, The earth’s getting hotter, hotter, God said to Noah, The earth’s getting hotter, hotter, Yet she is My (clap) beloved daughter, daughter — Children of the Lord.

CHORUS:

Rise and shine and give God your glory glory Rise and shine and give God your glory glory Rise and shine and (clap!) give God your glory glory Children of the Lord!

People are making My air too smoky, smoky People are making My air too smoky, smoky Fix it now! and (clap) don’t be pokey, pokey — Children of the Lord.

If you won’t cool down each auto and furnace, furnace, If you won’t cool down each auto and furnace, furnace, The heat and smoke will (clap) start to burn us,  burn us Children of the Lord.

CHORUS

The ice it will melt so there’s gonna be a floody floody Yes!  — God said to Noah there’s gonna be a floody floody Get My children (clap!) out of the muddy muddy Children of the Lord

For the rest, please click here. 

Today in my Politics of Developing Nations course, a young woman from Jordan spoke about women in Islam. She made a particularly interesting statement that caught my attention: once she moved to the U.S. she had to start explaining, and therefore thinking about, all her Islamic and Arabic customs. At home, it was just normal to pray 5 times a day, it was just normal to wear a Hijab (the head scarf), it was just normal to fast on Ramadan. She just did them out of habit, and so did everyone else. By having to think about why she chose to wear the Hijab, and why she fasted, she appreciated her choices and therefore reaffirmed her decisions that much more

           

I thought this was a great challenge not just for religion, but for all aspects of our lives. I think it is important to remind ourselves and even explain why we do the things we do.

 

Why do you recycle every day? Yes, we want to save the trees, but what is the deeper meaning for you? What are you trying to accomplish every time you don’t use a plastic water bottle?

 

Why do we rest on the Sabbath? Is it just a tradition? Is that what you were taught to do growing up? Why do you continue this practice as an adult? Why is the Sabbath special for you and how do you celebrate this day of rest?

 

Why are we voting for a specific presidential candidate? This is my first presidential election (I am so EXCITED – my absentee ballot is already in) – but with less than 1 week left until election day – the stances and issues supported by each candidate has become seemingly less significant compared to the price of wardrobes, SNL stints, and who can see Russia from their house. I, too, have to over look the hype present in my school (one of the vice presidential candidates is a University of Delaware Alum – he is speaking here on friday) and explain to myself why I voted the way I did.

What were the issues that are important to me? Where does each presidential stand on these issues? I have to make this decision and be able to explain it – if only to justify them to myself.

 

        It is so easy to fall into routine, mechanically performing our daily tasks.  Though we may not be regularly asked to explain ourselves, sometimes it is necessary to step back and review the things that have become a habit. Each choice you make is a representation of your individual and unique culture, beliefs, and values. So I invite you take time to explain why you do those everyday tasks, and why are they important to you every day.

For the last four months, I have been training for the big day: preparing my body to run 26.2 miles in the ING NYC Marathon.  On many of my weekly long runs, I wondered whether I could use the marathon training analogy to inspire budding environmentalists.  Becoming an environmentalist, like a marathoner, doesn’t happen overnight.  Like all personal achievements, these take time.  One needs to decide that they are willing to put the physical and mental energy into the effort.  Sometimes, one even needs to commit a bit of money into the cause, like new shoes and wind-sourced electricity.   

One of the most frequent comments I get to my marathoning is “wow, I could never do that.”  I always respond in the same way: you start with one mile, then work your way up to three.  Soon enough, you’re comfortable doing 5, try for 6 – and you realize you have it.  It’s a gradual process, but anyone can do it.  So goes with environmentalism.  Start with a simple action – one that you could imagine getting used to doing on a regular basis.  Once you have that down, add another, then another.  It takes time, but soon enough you’ll start living in more eco-friendly ways. 

Surprisingly for some, marathoning can be a bit easier than becoming an environmentalist.  After all, I have spent only 4 months training and, after Sunday, I’ll be done.  A commitment to environmentalism is a commitment for life.  Hopefully, it will play a role in everyday actions and decisions. 

And then there are the fans – on Sunday, thousands of New Yorkers (and my friends and family whom I appreciate enormously) line the streets of the five boroughs to encourage us runners on.  Their cheers and support ease the challenge of the marathon.  Personal challenges are rarely so encouraged by our friends, let alone strangers.

This week, my “challenge” is to not overwork my body, carb-load, and wish for good weather (not so hard).  Sunday I put in my all for a few hours and then I rest, a satisfied person.

But our environmental challenge keeps going.  Though there is no finish line in sight, each environmental success is a great one.  And though you may not hear fans screaming your name as you recycle yesterday’s paper, we’re out there, cheering you on.

Jews United for Justice had their first fundraising dinner last weekend in DC – hear it was quite successful.  Their takeaways were actual copies of their wonderful new publication, Green & Just Celebrations.  Hat tip to JUFJ.  This publication, while DC area specific, is applicable to most any locale and will be indispensable for synagogue bar/bat mitzvah planning, for couples making wedding choices, and for vendors seeking ways to offer more sustainable options to eco-savvy clients. Featured above is one of their suggestions, a tsedakah basket centerpiece.
Yasher kochachem to authors Rebecca Shaloff and Joelle Novey, along with Darya Mattes and Jacob Feinspan.
Here’s the announcement from their website:
Green & Just Celebrations

For the past week, I’ve been eating most of my meals in our Sukkah (pictured at left).  While its fabric walls and open roof offer little protection from the elements, I can think of few dwellings that are quite as inviting as a Sukkah.  And I can think of few Sukkot that are quite as inviting as my own. 

Its walls are etched with images that represent the members of our family and the words “Mishpachat Kefer” – the Kefer Family – are burned into its wooden frame.  The structure itself sits atop our roof – and each evening we enjoy a view of the neighborhood and the silence of the nighttime sky.  Assembling the Sukkah this year was a community event.  My husband and I completed the physical construction; two neighbors provided bamboo for the roof; a third neighbor babysat our youngest son while we gathered materials; and my in-laws watched our eldest.  And nearly every night, friends and family have joined us inside for meals, each bringing an item to help decorate.  These memories are preserved in laminated photographs that hang from the roof.  And repeat guests are entertained by tracking down photos of themselves from years’ past. 

I love the holiday of Sukkot because of its simplicity.  As Rabbi Scheinerman writes, the Sukkah “offers no luxuries and not even a modicum of protection.”  Its basic structure teaches us the value of “simplifying … If we spend less time with our appliances and conveniences (and the time required to maintain them) we have more time for people, study, and contemplation.”  In short, Sukkot forces us to reassess our regular routine and learn how to have “more fun” with “less stuff.”  For seven days we live closer to nature and watch the sky instead of the television.  For seven days, we host friends and spend time with family.  For seven days, Sukkot helps Jews discover the “new” American dream – the importance of having “more of what matters in life,” rather than simply “having more.” 

And, as it turns out, this is actually what Americans really want.  A 2005 poll released by the Center for a New American Dream revealed that a majority of Americans say that spending more time with family and friends would make them much more satisfied with their lives. Conversely, less than 3 in 10 say that having a bigger house or apartment or nicer things would make them much more satisfied.  And of course, living simply is not only good for you – its better for the planet.  [Click here to learn more about the Center for a New American Dream – and its innovative campaigns to simplify your life].

October is a hectic time to be a Jew.  But the quick succession of holidays provides a valuable lesson as well.  We greet the new year on Rosh Hashana.  We ask for forgiveness and health on Yom Kippur.  And on Sukkot, we are taught the values that should guide us in the year to come: the importance of spending time with friends and family, closeness to nature, and the value of simple living.

Last spring, David Elcott tore up much of his front lawn to plant a farm.  Last we heard, he was just beginning to enjoy the bounty of his labor. Now, during Sukkot – the Harvest Festival – David shares his reflections as the season comes to a close. This has been a guest-blog initiative with jcarrot.org. To catch up or refresh, here are his first and second posts. 

Who would have imagined that from June until the middle of October, we would only be eating vegetables from our own garden: multi-colored summer squash souflee and barbequed okra, leeksand parsnips and carrots in a cabbage soup, eggplants in abundance, stuffed Napa cabbage, baby spinach and enough spicy greens and snap peas to feed an army, a cherry tomato tartine in gold, red, yellow and orange, a banquet of roasted fingerling potatoes, beans that never stopped giving, all flavored with garden herbs. I prepared cold sweet cucumber soup with the added tartness of rhubarb and ate beets for the first time as part of a root vegetable medley. We decorated our salads with nasturtium and zucchini flowers. And corn, corn, corn – much of which never made it to the kitchen but eaten fresh off the stalk.  A time for rejoicing indeed!

The pleasure was not just for the eleven of us in our family. I would look out my window to see neighbors and friends stooped over, harvesting from our farm. Olivia next door and the two sets of twins behind us, none over six years old, lugging a finally discovered zucchini almost as big as they are.  The repeated line of “is this all from your garden?” brings such enormous pleasure.

And here is an additional reality of creating a mini-family farm:  Once the clearing and tilling and initial labor of planting are over, with good mulching and a bit of hoeing and weeding, maintaining the garden throughout the season is not so much work.  These are plants that have developed over millions of years to want to grow, to soak in the sun and water, to resist disease and insects, to produce – just for our family.  So I sprayed the aphids with a soap solution and handpicked the beetles that wanted to eat the leaves of my eggplant, but really did not fight too much.  The garden seemed in balance and I shared with the rabbits and squirrels and birds.  None of us went hungry.

It is Sukkot now, the holiday of the harvest, the one holiday that is called “the time of our rejoicing.”  The crops are in, we will not starve, the world works, and all my hard work paid off.  The Rashbam, a Medieval Jewish commentator on the Bible, warns us to avoid the hubris of saying, “My power and the might of my right hand has gotten me this wealth (Deuteronomy 8:17).” He is so right. I had to control the ego that swelled when I walked by my little farm. Who am I kidding?  I am so dependent on the farmers that provided me with organic seeds and soil, the workers who mixed the organic fertilizer for me, the sun that warmed my plants and the plentiful rain that kept my crops watered, the bees and birds pollinated the flowers, even the wind which is necessary for corn to produce. Sustainable agriculture for me means that I remain acutely aware of this balance, that I am a part of the process and not its master.

We sat in our sukkah, that fragile booth open to the elements, decorated with corn stalks from our field, eating from the cornucopia of our little farm, and recited with great fervor: Blessed is the Eternal who has nurtured us with life that sustains us and allows us to celebrate this moment. This certainly has been a growing season of great rejoicing.    

This weekend, as Jews around the world greeted each other in a Sukkah built to honor our relationship with our earth, the environmental community commemorated a different kind of annual event: the anniversary of the Clean Water Act, signed into law on October 18, 1972. Along with the Clean Air Act and Endangered Species Act of 1973, the Clean Water Act is considered a cornerstone of our national environmental policy. Under the Act, more than one billion pounds per year of toxic pollutants have been removed from our nation’s waters, moving us far along the path to make all rivers, lakes, and coastal waters in the United States ‘fishable and swimmable,’ the original goal of the Act.

This year however, debate over the Act reminds us that the fight for a healthy environment is never fully won, and that we must continually engage in the effort to preserve our natural resources for ourselves and our children. Progress on water issues is in danger following a series of federal court cases that restrict protection by narrowing the definition of waters that fall under the Act. In response to the 2006 Supreme Court decision on the definition of ‘navigable waters,’ 22 Senators and 177 House members are co-sponsoring the Clean Water Restoration Act (CWRA). The CWRA ensures that the Clean Water Act can be effectively enforced to protect all of the nation’s waters from pollution. Since clean water is the backbone of the healthy ecosystems that provide barriers against natural disasters and climate change, a strong Clean Water Act is more important today than ever before.

Clean water is essential to us all, both as users of the public water supply and as Jews.  The history of the Jewish people- dating back to the Great Flood and the Exodus from Egypt and continuing with the modern struggles of Israeli society to adequately hydrate its people and its fields – is the history of our relationship with water.  The Baal Shem Tov, the Jewish mystic and scholar, explained, “If we were to walk in the woods and a spring appeared just when we became thirsty, we would call it a miracle. And if on a second walk, if we became thirsty at just that point again, and again the spring appeared, we would remark on the coincidence. But if that spring were there always, we would take it for granted and cease to notice it. Yet is that not more miraculous still?”  If we stop to appreciate the miracle of water, we realize that we must also act to ensure that we keep our water clean and safe for us and for generations to come.

Many experts fear that the next great resource wars will be fought over water, as millions around the globe still lack access to safe, drinkable water.  While we cannot fix this problem with national legislation alone, we can start facing it by fighting for clean water here at home, and raising awareness about water issues. As we celebrate the harvest festival of Sukkot, take action by supporting the Clean Water Restoration Act and speaking out on the importance of water issues in your community, in our country, and in our world.

Rachel is an Eisendrath Legislative Assistant working on environment and energy issues at the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism in Washington, DC. She will be a regular guest blogger on To Till and To Tend this year, posting entries every other Monday. This, and all of Rachel’s entries, can also be found on the Religious Action Center blog.

Reusing sacred objects in performing another mitzvah is a longstanding Jewish tradition.  The main ritualized reuse which comes to mind is the etrog and lulav, since they are “one-use” ceremonial objects.  (Other ritual items either are wholly consumed, like ceremonial foods, or permanently reusable.)  Classic reuses for the etrog are creating a pomander studded with cloves or preparing etrog jam or liqueur.
The lulav dries over the winter and the custom is to use it as part of Passover preparation.  It makes a nifty little broom for sweeping up chametz.  Here are some other traditional customs:

1. R. Yehudah ben Kalonymus (Ashkenaz, twelfth century) used to save the aravot (willows) from the lulav in order to burn the hametz, basing himself on the above passage, and this custom was recorded in all of the classic custom books of Ashkenaz.⁵ In modern times, Iraqi Jews used the aravot from Hoshana Rabbah.⁶
2. In Yemen, on the other hand, it was the custom to use the lulav, hadassim and aravot as fuel for the oven when baking matzah shemurah.⁷ Finally, the Jews of Syria, Morocco and Baghdad used the lulav both for burning the hametz and for baking matzah.⁸

This year, since martinis are all the rage, let’s enjoy post-Sukkot ETROGINIs.  Leah Koenig over at Jewcy has just the ticket – complete instructions. She’s dubbed her creation a Sukkatini, but etrogini is more fun to say.  L’chaim!

I recently returned from a camping trip to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks and sadly put my tent away for the season.  I was inspired, though, by words at the end of the Yom Kippur service, “Open for us a gate, in this time of closing gates.”  As the season for camping ends, the time for Jewish outdoor activity begins. 

As the first full moon of autumn approaches, Jews everywhere are stepping outside and building temporary huts called Sukkot.  Traditionally, these huts (or may I even say tents) have a twofold meaning (like all biblical holidays, as I wrote for Shavuot) – they remind us of the temporary huts we made in the fields at the peak of harvest and the ones we lived in through our Exodus journey.

On Sukkot, Jews around the world go outside and face the elements of nature!  (If you know the same type of Jews I do, this is no small deal.)  If it’s cold, we put on more layers.  If there are bugs out, we light citronella candles and wish for the best.  Even if it rains, we stay outside long enough to say the blessings over the wine and bread, and to bless the act of sitting in the sukkah. 

In this modern world, it’s easy to move from your climate controlled house, to your climate controlled car, to your climate controlled office or to the shopping mall. 

But during Sukkot, we step back thousands of years to the tents of our ancestors, leaving many of our modern luxuries behind.  The funny thing is, most everybody enjoys it. 

Whether or not every Jew will use the experience of Sukkot to join America’s Jewish outdoor club or hike from the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) to the Mediterranean isn’t the point.  Still, every outdoorsman/woman knows that the first step to enjoying the outdoors is stepping outside.  At the beginning of this new year, I hope each of you finds pleasure in the beauty of the Sukkah and the curiosity to adventure in the wonders beyond.        

Chag Sameach!

Several weeks ago, I attended a religious service. No, it was not my usual service attendance at a synagogue on Shabbat, rather, I was going to a Hindu temple ( the American Sevasram Sangha in Jamaica, Queens) with my Hinduism class. It was my first time in a Hindu temple and I was looking forward to experiencing religious rituals completely unfamiliar to me. While this is exactly what happened, I also, unexpectedly found myself being introduced to a little of Hindu eco-theology.

My class was privileged enough to meet with the Temple’s pandit (guru). In the midst of our talk on the theology and traditions of Sanatana Dharma (meaning “eternal way”, a more preferred name for “Hindusim” by many Hindus), the pandit told us that the issue of Global Warming is a pressing one. Unsustainable treatment of the Earth goes against much of Hindu belief.

While the pandit did not go into detail of Hindu eco-theology, I’ve been on the lookout for glimpses of it in my readings of Hindu sacred texts. One example that stood out for me is an excerpt from the Upanisads which states, “Now, take these rivers, son.  The easterly ones flow towards the east, and westerly ones flow towards the west. From the ocean, they merge into the very ocean; they become just the ocean. In that state they are not aware that; ‘I am that river’, and ‘I am that river.’ In exactly the same way, son, when all these creatures reach the existent, they are not aware that ‘We are reaching the existent.’ No matter what they are in this world-whether it is a tiger, a lion, a wolf, a boar, a worm, a moth, a gnat, or a mosquito-they all merge into that….that is the self and that’s how you are…”

This notion, that all beings share a common identity with each other and the world, is a good example of Hindu eco-theology and may be why Hindus find it important to protect and preserve the environment they themselves are an integral part of.

This particular passage reminded me of something that Maimonides discusses in his Guide for the Perplexed. Maimonides says, “Know that this universe, in its entirety, is nothing else but one individual being; that is to say, the outermost heavenly sphere, together with all included therein, is as regards individuality beyond all question a single being..:”

I always find it beautiful when connections can be made across varying cultures and religions. I now see that distinct ways of life, Hinduism and Judaism, can find at least some common ground on the idea that the world and all it contains is a single entity. That piece of eco-theology teaches that humans are not independent agents that can use the rest of creation solely for our benefit. Shared eco-theology will do us all good. We can use such common grounds to create and bolster inter-faith efforts. After all, isn’t the point of environmental work that nature knows no boundaries?