To Till and to Tend

Last week I attended the spirited, intense National Havurah Institute in New Hampshire.  Not having participated for over a decade I noted with pleasure the many ecologically smart "minhagim", or customs, which have evolved.  FairTrade coffee, as much local produce as possible, minimal disposables and encouragement to bring your own coffee mugs and even name tags.  At check out, many items were collected for reuse, such as the key necklaces for our dorm rooms.  And there was a book and clothing swap - all kinds of Judaica changed hands and found new homes.
So, I thought, why not do this all year, people offering their surplus Judaica - basically a national Jewish
Freecycle ^(TM)?  (I am more aware of this than usual, having just helped a friend with a large Judaica library & resource collection downsize from six bedrooms to a small apartment.)  But it strikes me that COEJL should be the umbrella, and invite participation from the whole Jewish community: organizations, schools, congregations, as well as individuals.
It could function both nationally and locally.  People/organizations can post items they want to pass along, from an individual spice box, say, to a whole set of old chumashim or prayerbooks.  Likewise, you can post what you're seeking, so others who may have some can offer them up.  (This is already done through the Reform and Conservative rabbinical associations, by the way.)  Perhaps folks in Long Island are looking for 12 tablecloths for a bar mitzvah Shabbat dinner; maybe someone in their vicinity would have them to loan or pass along.  Need 50 kipot?  Maybe there are leftovers from a General Assembly, and all they need are new labels....  Maybe surplus Kosher food could be shipped out?  On our local Freecycle (of which I am one of the moderators), people have asked for or given away matzah boxes during Passover, offered Hebrew novels from the 1960's (4 takers on that one!), and a Judaica "starter kit" which I put together, consisting of my early Judaica, eventually replaced by newer, more lavish items.  The couple who came for the starter set were delighted, and I'm sure there would be a lot of enthusiaism for acquiring a Judaica collection in such a fashion - free after paying shipping.
Anyone out there with some data base/ computer skills interested in helping us think this through?  We're envisioning a simply graphic look, a la Craig's list.  Ideas for names?  Volunteers?  Chime in, so we can proceed on this project, which will lower the cost, as well as the waste and duplication,  and increase the sustainability, of Jewish life.

My cousin mentioned that at her minyan, Lomdim in Chicago, they showed The Gleaners and I on Shavuot, thematically tying in the activity of Ruth to contemporary behaviors.  Gleaning is the biblical precept of leaving the corners of the fields unharvested so that the poor can collect grain for their sustenance.  In contemporary times, there is still a gleaning movement.  The Society of Saint Andrew is dedicated towards salvaging crops for the hungry, accomplishing two mitzvot at once: feeding the hungry and avoiding waste, bal tashit. 
In urban contexts, there are many food salvage programs that help feed the hungry, like Second Harvest and our local Philabundance.  Another trend developing, is called Freganism.  Fregans dumpster dive and trashpick as a life style, calling attention to the astronomically wasteful American lifestyle.  Generally fregans have opted out of a high consumption lifestyle and, not being homeless, are a different demographic than people who live on the streets.
The Internet iscleverly utilized to match givers and gleaners.  My personal favorite is freecycle.org - there are thousands of local freecycle groups where folks go daily to offer and request items.  My latest give-away was two bird-feeders that were attracting more squirrels the feathers; my next request is lined 3-hole paper.  Most households have a lot of that sitting around at the end of the school year!
Many freecyle(TM) participants post things we see on the street, dubbed "Curb Alerts".  Much akin to gleaning, people leave items up for grab on the corners of their driveways.  One question which comes up on Freecycle lists is whether it's ok for people to resell items claimed via Freecycle, on Ebay or at flea markets.  I say that's great.  It's helping people to earn income, keeps things out of the waste stream, and since the donor was obviously too lazy to bother, the reseller is offering an environmental service.  Craigs List also has a large section of free items. 
Whether you glean out of ideological conviction, for sport, or from need, it is an ancient and wonderful system!

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

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

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.

For many environmentalists our #1 goal is to consume less. We understand all material things come with a cost – things come from raw materials, take energy to produce and eventually become waste. Though we may buy biodegradable plates, organic cotton clothing and Energy Star certified appliances, less is better, at least where the environment is concerned. Have you ever wondered how many earths we would need if all 6 billion people consumed like you? http://ecofoot.org/. The eco-calculator isn’t perfect, but it shows a reality that is hard to stomach.

A few weeks ago a link came across my desk, one that so profoundly and impressively engaged the issue of consumer behavior and history that I had to pass it along here: www.thestoryofstuff.com. Annie Leonard, the voice behind the site, helps address how Americans moved from a conservationist mentality (think WWII) to intense consumer behavior and explains an issue dear to my (academic) heart; environmental externalities (costs from environmental damage that are not accounted for in the price of a product).

One’s economic, social and environmental conscience may very well encourage modest consumer behavior (especially after watching the video). Jewish teaching comments, too. The rabbis are clear that a conscientious Jew doesn’t waste. Bal taschit, biblical in origin, is a law which mandates that we consume responsibly and not waste the resources we have. As citizens of this world, we have a right to eat, be prosperous and enjoy the miraculous lives we’ve been given, but only if we can provide the same for our children.

Ways to reduce consumption:

Buy fresh, organic and local at farmers markets
Visit your local thrift store

Recycle www.earth911.org