To Till and to Tend

            What does Teshuvah, the power to change our lives for the better that we attempt to actualize at this, the highest moment in the Jewish year, have to do with reducing one’s car    bon footprint? Isn’t connecting the two just a way of hitching a ride for one’s pet cause on the Jewish calendar?

             I raised this question in a blog two weeks ago introducing Jewish Climate Initiative’s Carbon Offsetting Guide, and want to continue pursuing it here.

            The place where the world is most stuck in combating climate change is at the point of connection between big and small, global and local, individual and government.  The most common reason for individual inaction is “it’s pointless for me to change my lifestyle/lightbulbs; I’m just an infinitesimally small part of this. It will take government, laws, and loads of money to deal with this.”

True it will, but the “big problem” is made up of billions of everyday decisions about how we choose to eat, shop, to heat our homes, and move around. Consumer spending represents 70% of the American economy. Somehow we have, as a civilization, contrived to so mismanage these primal areas of human life that the viable continuation of our civilization is in question.

            The stuckness comes from both directions. Governments are our agents, not our alibis. They won’t make far-reaching policy changes that will require us to alter our lifestyles until they see that we are ready to change and are not going to throw them out of power for requiring us to do so.

As I wrote then,

“We intuitively understand the solid-bodies physics of how an SUV, if driven without care, can flatten pedestrians. Knowing this, we are generally careful to make sure not to do so. The atmospheric physics of how careless driving of a different kind can contribute to flattening somebody’s mud hut in the Maldives is beyond most of our scientific ken and so outside our frames of conceptual and moral reference. After all, very few people would knowingly and deliberately drive their SUV into a mud hut. And if we did so by accident, most of us would certainly say sorry, and offer to pay.

“In Judaism, individual responsibility is the fundamental unit of social change. Teshuvah starts with me and you, (as my friend Jess Gold in England points out.)  ‘Great is Teshuvah, because through a single person repenting, the whole world may be forgiven,’ says the Talmud (Yoma 86b). This is the redemptive flip side of interconnectedness; the deep, sincere transformation of one person can change the world.”

I really think that’s true. But how can you put it across in a way that moves people to act? Let me introduce an idea that, I believe, will help.

              Rabbi Israel Salanter, the great nineteenth century founder of the mussar movement coined a famous saying: “My neighbor’s physical needs are my spiritual needs.” When I feed, clothe or shelter my neighbor, I am also fulfilling my deepest spiritual imperatives.

           Let’s be clear: Rabbi Salanter was not saying that, actually, it’s all about my spiritual needs. He didn’t believe that my neighbor is merely an incidental bit-part player in the great drama of me. Rather, he was pointing out that the world is so set up as to inextricably connect reaching out to sustain his material life with my spiritual growth.

            Today I believe it is no less accurate to say: “the planet’s ecological needs are my spiritual needs.”  When I engage with “ecological” issues, I fulfill some of the most basic and profound spiritual needs that Judaism identifies. This is true in manifold ways. I want to point out just one that has to do with Teshuvah the perennial power to fix and uplift  our lives  – surely one of the deepest spiritual needs that we have.

            An absolute prerequisite for Teshuvah is taking responsibility for harm we have caused. Maimonides says it unequivocally in chapter 1 of the Laws of Teshuvah: there’s no forgiveness for sins against others until you ask forgiveness from those you have hurt and make good damage you have done.

             There is no real Teshuvah for damage we do to people or their property until we identify and acknowledge the harm, and then do whatever we can to repair it.

            Back in the days when that meant redressing the damage of my ox goring my neighbor’s sheep; it was easy enough. I would say sorry to my neighbor, buy him another sheep and tie up my ox tighter in the future.

            But today the harm we can do every day is far more complicated and – scary. The vehicle I drive may be implicated in storms in Bangladesh or droughts in Mali; the food I put in my supermarket cart might have been produced with pesticides that poison water supplies and wreck eco-systems, before being trucked thousands of miles across the country to reach me. The manufacturing decisions made in the name of my everyday choices may, with or without my knowledge, cause havoc to the environment and to the lives of people far away.

            Striving to fix these things is not “environmentalism” or even “environmental teshuvah.” It is simply teshuvah. It is about redressing hurt and damage that we have caused in our daily lives just as if we had failed to repay a loan or smashed someone’s vase, or broken their leg in a car crash that was our fault. Whether or not we did these things knowingly and deliberately, once we do know about them; teshuvah means taking responsibility for putting them right.

            Today, the planet’s ecological needs coincide with each of our basic spiritual need for teshuvah; becoming aware of and repairing damage that we have done, and resolving to act more reverently and lovingly towards our surroundings from now on. And so we will each become part of the planetary fixing. As the Talmud says:

             “Great is Teshuvah because it brings healing to the world…

            “Great is Teshuvah because it brings closer redemption…

            “Great is Teshuvah because through an individual who does Teshuvah, the whole world may be forgiven.”

            Talmud Yoma, 86a-b.

1. Input the ISBN number and the book will pop up. 
2. Check out the price for “used and new books for sale”.  Many vendors other than Amazon itself sell new books on Amazon.  What you need to know is the LOWEST price, so you can lowball it.  That way your book is most likely to sell.  At this point you can decide if it’s worth the hassle.  If the resale value of the book is only a few dollars, you may not want to bother.
3. If you go ahead, click on “Sell Yours Here” and follow all the prompts.  Remember to ignore what they tell you the book is worth, if you want to actually SELL it. 
4. When your book sells, you’ll receive an email.  You then need to go into your Amazon Book Seller account and bring up the info. 

My father was not a particularly religious man.  Yet, growing up, my family was the first to arrive at synagogue on Kol Nidre, the evening before Yom Kippur.  The plaintive cry of the Kol Nidre prayer (performed here by Yo Yo Ma) spoke to my father as it speaks to Jews around the world; its heart-wrenching melody reminds each of us of human imperfection.  On this, the evening of the holiest day of the year, Jews join together and declare that any vows or promises they make in the coming year are “absolved, released, annulled, made void, and of none effect.”  It’s a powerful tool – a proactive apology that forgives broken promises before they are ever made.  This device has particular significance in an election year.

Certainly, what candidate wouldn’t be delighted to learn of an ancient formula explicitly designed to erase all promises that are made in order to curry favor or support?  Whoever our next president is, he will have made promises to the American people about addressing climate change, promoting energy independence and jump-starting our economy with green jobs. As citizens we must take these commitments seriously, holding our elected leaders to their promises on energy and climate, and not allowing other competing issues to detract from the importance of this initiative.  To ensure that our leading candidates hold true to their promises to address climate change in the next Administration, I recently joined hundreds of influential scientists, environmental activists and public policy in signing a “Letter to the Next President” as part of the Presidential Climate Action Project.  I encourage you to read the letter and add your signature.

Campaign promises are a serious matter – and the Kol Nidre prayer does not offer an easy out.  To the contrary, Kol Nidre only applies to vows made between G-d and man; it does not absolve promises made between two people.  “For transgressions between man and man, Yom Kippur brings no atonement, until the injured party is appeased.”  (Mishna Yoma, Chapter viii)  Such appeasal require an express apology.  An apology I, for one, will not be inclined to accept.

Homes and offices that run on the sun’s rays. Trucks and buses powered by used grease from the local McDonald’s. Cars that plug in like kitchen appliances to a cell phone provider-like network.  All of these ideas may sound as futuristic as the time traveling DeLorean but, in fact, all are possible with current technology. Innovators around the world are taking action to solve the climate change and energy crises one step at a time and, in the process, changing the way we live.

One especially exciting innovation is the next generation of plug-in hybrid automobiles. We have all grown accustomed to the Prius, but these new cars are different. The Chevy Volt, which is predicted to be “fully charged” by 2010, will run entirely on battery power for the first 40 miles, will plug into a conventional outlet to charge, and will get the equivalent of up to 150 miles per gallon in optimal conditions. Yes, 1-5-0. Forget the 35 miles per gallon CAFÉ standards that Congress passed last year. Forget the 50 miles per gallon range of current gas-electric hybrids. This is real progress.

The major obstacle for the truly electric car is infrastructure; without a network of stations to charge cars during long trips, hybrids must revert to gasoline power after traveling a certain distance. Not to worry. Shai Agassi, an entrepreneur from Israel, is currently touring the world to promote his BetterPlace project—an initiative to establish a global grid of plug-in stations that will allow hybrids and full electrics to completely replace the traditional automobile. Israelis have long understood the intersection between energy, security, and economics. Now, it seems Americans are beginning to see it too; the economic bailout passed last week includes $25 billion dollars in loans for Detroit to spur the next generation of cleaner, more efficient cars. Auto- and policy-makers hope this money will provide an impetus for real and rapid progress. As one Chrysler exec explained, “It’s a way for us to accelerate technology so you can get it in the hands of people faster and so they can afford it.”

In this country, one third of our carbon emissions come from transportation. It is unlikely that Americans will stop driving anytime soon, though we can and should drive less. However, the plug-in hybrid and other projects like it can take us on the path to a cleaner world and a more secure energy future without requiring revolutionary changes in the way we live. This is innovation at its best, and technology to keep an eye on as these new cars roll off the factory floor and onto our roadways.

As Al Gore and friends remind us, working together “WE” can solve climate change. And when I see innovations like the Volt, I believe it too.

Barukh atah Adonai eloheinu melekh ha-olam, sha’asah li kol tsorki.

I am helping another friend similarly downsize, from a six bedroom house to a one bedroom apartment.  She ingeneiously decided to photograph items with sentimental value, so there is a visual of them, while not actually saving the items.  Each adult child will receive an album of photos of stuffed animals, bulletin board contents, posters, and other memorabilia from their long-ago childhoods and teenager stages.
Good luck to any of you embarking on this virtuous and challenging experience – getting rid of surplus.  May your discards find a new life in the cycle of stuff.