To Till and to Tend

A few days ago, I purchased a sandwich from a local deli. As an afterthought, I asked for an extra piece of cheese for the baby. Before I could take the slice, the counterperson smiled brightly and immediately placed the two-by-two inch square into a 16-ounce cup with a plastic lid. “Is that for here or to go?” she queried, stuffing a three-inch stack of napkins into a plastic bag. As she rang up my order, I surreptitiously returned the napkins to a receptacle on the counter. The cup, unfortunately, would have to be “recycled” into a blog post.

Last week, the G8 announced that they would (with, as the Daily Grist reports, a number of caveats) aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by fifty percent from current levels by mid-century. An ambitious goal, to be sure – yet, the scientific community has told us we need to reduce emissions by 80 percent from 1990 levels to avoid the most catastrophic effects of global warming. Whether the right number is fifty percent or eighty percent – the numbers are high enough to make your stomach sink and your head spin. What does it mean to cut emissions by more than half? And how can we possibly accomplish this? Certainly, how can we accomplish this when we live in a society that finds it necessary to cover a single slice of cheese with a cup and a lid?

The answer is we can’t.

As long as we live in a society where a sandwich is accompanied by its weight in napkins; where a container of yogurt is served with a plastic knife, fork and spoon; and a single gallon of milk is placed inside two plastic grocery bags, we will not win the battle against climate change. Solving the climate crisis is going to require a fundamental change in our national consciousness. We must learn to rethink consumption and redefine our “needs.” And we cannot simply defer to the government to make these changes.

Sometimes I get overwhelmed when I think of the enormity of our needed reductions. But the Styrofoam cup is half full: with so much excess, the initial cuts will be easy. In fact, a report released earlier this month by Environment America announced that simple building efficiency measures could reduce US energy consumption by 11%. A December 2007 report by McKinsey and Company identified more than 250 existing technologies and strategies that could reduce US emissions by 28% in 2030. And imagine how we can each augment these numbers with countless changes in our own lives – from taking our own grocery bags to the market to riding public transportation to work.

Indeed, America will come a long way toward addressing the climate crisis when cashiers begin to serve fries without a side of plastic. And tomorrow when I take my kids for icecream, I’ll be sure to ask for it in a cone – hold the cup and spoon.

[I'd love to hear your stories about waste – and ways to get to 80 percent. Please share both your experiences with excess and helpful tips for reducing consumption in the comments below]

67% of Americans who say they care about the environment do so because it’s “God’s creation.”

Almost 50% of Sierra Club members go to a house of worship at least once a month.

Whoa.

I hope that it’s no surprise to any readers that there is a strong faith-based environmental movement. The National Religious Partnership for the Environment – made up of Jews (COEJL), Catholics, Protestants (NCC Eco-Justice) and Evangelicals (Evangelical Environmental Network) – has been around for over 15 years. Interfaith Power and Light (IPL) is an environmental initiative with over 25 state chapters. To these organizations and many of their affiliated houses of worship, connection between Earth stewardship and faith is clear.

Sierra Club has recently noticed this powerful movement and published a report: Faith in Action: Communities of Faith Bring Hope for the Planet, which includes the stats mentioned above. Beyond an introduction which delves into the power of faith-based action, it shares stories of 52 communities of faith – one for each state, Washington, DC and Puerto Rico – where their faith propelled them to critical ecological and sustainable action. As the report notes, the environmental movement has been secular, shying away from “values” and, dare I say it, “creation.” Never before has a study like this been done. But the environmental (and political) significance is enormous!

Though there is a clear danger in grafting “God” with “politics,” (I hope I don’t need to explain) even Sierra Club can’t ignore its wonders. 86% of the world’s population affiliates with a religion. The report notes that all the religious environmental initiatives “coalesce around a few key broadly shaped principles: stewardship, justice and concern for ‘the poor,’ and concern for one’s neighbor and future generations.” Agreement on these principles may not bring world peace. Frankly, slight variations of interpretation continue to yield devastating wars.

If we can harness the energy of religious faiths to the issues of earth stewardship, then we might just have a chance.

Logo from WiseTemple.org

I wish that I were creative enough to have created this term on my own, but alas, I must be honest, it was King Jigme Singye Wangchuck of Bhutan. In catching up on my National Geographic magazines, I read an article entitled “Bhutan’s Enlightened Experiment,” and I think I had a little bit of enlightenment myself.

In the 1960’s, Bhutan began to open its borders and peered into the wonders and challenges of modernity and globalization. Proud of their Buddhist culture and simple ways, the Bhutanese sought an entry into modernity that included good health, education and infrastructure, while maintaining the beauty and serenity of the land. To accomplish this, the King stepped away from the normal quantifier of prosperity, net dollars earned called Gross National Product.

Instead, he chose to measure his country’s success by the four pillars Gross National Happiness: (1) sustainable development (2) environmental protection (3) cultural preservation and (4) good governance. Consequently, since 1982, Bhutan has reduced infant mortality rate by 75%, increased literacy rate by 600% and life expectancy by 23 years. Meanwhile, it appears that nothing has been lost: most of Bhutan remains virgin forest and Bhutanese culture, tradition and identity remain strong. Sustainable emersion, growth and perspective in its truest form.

While there is much to learn in the brilliance of others, we can also learn from that which already rolls off our tongues.

Jewish tradition doesn’t have the clarity of the four pillars of GNH, but we do have Torah. As we sing each time we read from the Torah as a community: “Eitz chayim he lamachazikim bah, vetomcheha me’ushar. Deracheha darchey noam, vechol netivoteha shalom.” It is a Tree of Life to them who hold fast to it, and all who embrace it will be enriched. Its ways are ways of pleasantness and all its paths lead to peace.
- Proverbs 3:17-18

I couldn’t write this past month. Too nervous. The temperature dipped, I read up on all the pests and bugs and germs that could kill the seeds. The little seedlings looked so vulnerable. When it looked like the temperature would hit the low 40’s I panicked and ran out to Home Depot, bought some metal to make hoops and heavy plastic and actually hid my tomatoes, peppers and eggplants in their own private green houses. The days between Pesach and Shavuot are for counting the Omer – fifty days that according to tradition are anxiety producing because the dry winds or heavy rains could wipe out the crops and people would starve. I certainly identified with that anxiety even if I knew that the green grocer was open and waiting for my business. So, as I said, I could not write.

But now I can. It is approaching the advent of the summer, the sun is warming the earth, the rains keep the Farm, the Cornfield and the Potato Patch generously moist. The vegetation is luxuriant and lush. My son took one look at the rows of colorful lettuces, micro-greens, red rocket lettuce and a variety of multi-colored munchables whose name I do not know, and declared, “This looks just like the finest salad bowl.” Just sitting happily on my little farm, providing fresh salads – meaning about five minutes from earth to plate! I throw in cut herbs – the herb garden is growing like wild – and even a few nasturtium and broccoli leaves. I was showing Liore how the peas are starting to bloom when we both kneeled down and realized that the vines were already resplendent with edible snap peas. The watermelon radishes are sharp and tangy and look just like, well, miniature watermelons. And who would have guessed that by June 16^th we would harvest our first tomato, sliced thin for sharing and sprinkled with top- grade olive oil, Portuguese sea salt and fresh ground pepper? It is a beautiful sight. And if the corn is not as high as an elephant’s eye, the stalks are growing nicely.

The rabbit. He hopped into the garden, through the mesh fence or under the buried black mesh or somehow got in. I ran out – as my wife said, it was a good thing we do not even allow toy guns in our house since she was convinced my eyes gleamed with murder. But when I got out there, he had nibbled a few leaves and bounced happily away. If I am planning to share with my neighbors, why not allow the rabbits a bit to eat as well. A bit, okay. We will see.

Other dangers lurk. I know all about the slimy squash vine borer who waits patiently until the flower blooms and the cute little squash begins to grow. Then it pounces and you come out the next day to see mush in your field. And when I asked Liore to tell me the name of a pretty orange and black beetle, she said that you call it, “Kill on sight!” So I did. To be a farmer is to be vigilant and steadfast, like the colonists fighting the Revolutionary War, like the Israelites in the desert. Up at 6 and out to see whether everything vanished during the night. So far so good.

When Noam and Julie had their first pea or radish – don’t remember what – they recited shehechiyanu, the blessing that celebrates a wondrous new occasion, and then borey p’ree ha’adamah – blessing the vegetables that grow and flourish out of the soil. I love saying blessings, but they sound different when recited over the earth that I tilled and watered, the furrows that I hoed, the seeds and seedlings I planted, and the plants that I nurtured. Along with the rain and sun and wind and pollinating birds and bees. Vaya’ar elohim ki tov—and God saw that it was very, very good. And tasty, too.

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 breastfeeding 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 breastmilk. 

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?”

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….

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.

American Judaism is defined by its extraordinary activism. When Jewish learning and identity needed bolstering, we organized schools, youth groups, JCC’s and Hillels to respond. When “continuity” was a concern, we mobilized to fund funky efforts engaging Jews who hang close to the edge. Whenever Jewish rights and liberties were restricted, we created a network of defense organizations, which helped not only Jews but others who suffered prejudice and exclusion.
In the last decade alone, the leadership of the Jewish community launched such remarkable and successful efforts as Taglit/birthright, designed to confer upon every Jew between the ages of 18 and 26 the right and ability to visit Israel; PEJE – The Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education designed to increase enrollment in Jewish day schools; and the Foundation for Jewish Camping designed to increase the number of Jewish children “participating in transformative summers at Jewish camp.”

All of these efforts – powerful, valuable and successful – were launched because dynamic Jewish philanthropies and donors organized, studied, led, funded and inspired them. These Jewish leaders did not wait for the right combination of staff, ideas, capacity and programs to come to them. They saw a need, a vacuum in our capacity to respond to that need, and mobilized. They gathered the lay leaders, the professional staff, the thinkers and strategists and social scientists, and they put their money behind their commitment.

It is time we utilize that same formula, employ that same energy, engage that same wisdom and dynamics in the arena of Jewish environmentalism. The vibrancy of the environment and the well-being of the Jewish community need nothing less.

The facts are clear: the environment is being rapidly degraded by business-as-usual. We need to re-imagine and redesign the ways we mine, manufacture, build, power, use and dispose of the stuff of society. If we don’t, we will irrevocably deplete and so exhaust our available resources (both natural and monetary) that we will diminish the security, health, dreams and options we bequeath to our children. Thousands of young Jews see environmentalism as the defining issue of their lives. And they see organized Judaism making little to no significant contributions to the cause. Which means they see Judaism (or at least organized Judaism) as making little to no difference to them.   

We can respond to both needs in one comprehensive response. Here is what we must do:

1) Reclaim tending to the earth as a mitzvah. We must re-establish environmental ethics as a mitzvah, a sacred standard of Jewish practice, like tikkun olam, feeding the hungry, caring for the elderly, freeing the captive.

We must enfold it in the practices and policies of all that we do, from the paints we use in our classrooms and Section 202 housing, to the food we serve at our simchas to the flooring we choose for our JCCs, to the curricula we develop in our day schools and synagogues, to the investment policies of our Federations to the vans we buy to carry our seniors to the legislative policies we endorse on local, state and federal levels.

In short, environmental concerns must become part of the formula the guides the actions and decisions of the Jewish community in the basic conduct of our lives.

2) Offices of Sustainability. Every significant Jewish community should create an Office of Sustainability to assist in the “greening” of the buildings under local Jewish ownership or management. The American Jewish community controls millions of square feet of public space, from federation buildings to JCCs to synagogues to schools to senior homes and more. Our collective behavior can significantly reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases nationwide, create healthier indoor space for all those who work and visit our buildings, save money that can ultimately be used to bolster salaries of our communal workers and support greater programming from pre-school to senior centers, and serve as a model for others, both for-profit and not-for-profit concerns, in our communities.

But synagogues and schools and others cannot do this themselves. The learning curve, the options, and the financing to pursue greening strategies are often daunting to organizations that want to do the right thing (never mind those who are skeptical). Going green often requires the investment of human resources that these individual organizations do not possess. This can be easily remedied, however, if each sizable Jewish community created one centralized office that can assist all local Jewish organizations, encouraging them and guiding them in their green building efforts. This office could be based in the Federation, or the JCC. This would not only assist in our environmental agenda but also serve to strengthen the ties among a community’s various Jewish organizations.

Many of our communities are already blessed with Jews involved in the green building trade, green waste management, green consumer knowledge, green energy experience. And many of these Jews are not yet engaged in the Jewish community. We can both benefit from their knowledge and experience and, perhaps for the first time, make meaningful and potentially enduring connections with them.

3) Green Fund. We need a handful of influential funders and philanthropists to come together to use their moral and financial suasion to move this issue toward the top of the American Jewish agenda, and as importantly, to embed it in our contemporary Jewish identity. Just as we think of American Jewry as committed to supporting Israel, working toward tikkun olam, and protecting human life and dignity around the world, so we now need to add the protection, sustainable management, and attitude of awe toward this miraculous but fragile world of ours.

Through the leverage of a Green Fund, a group of philanthropists can inspire and enable the Jewish community to fully engage in this work. They can guide a national discussion on Jewish environmentalism so that every school, every federation and every synagogue embraces and explores this issue.  They can entice and grow the field with a call for RFPs (requests for proposals) for new or expandable programs, seeking out the most creative and most successful, They can fund Jewish environmental classes and programs to create more informed lay leaders, train and support Jewish environmental professionals, and build an educated and committed populace. They can assist in the initial funding of local Jewish Offices of Sustainability. They can support the pioneering and ground-breaking work of national Jewish environmental organizations such as COEJL, Teva, Isabella Friedman, Hazon  Kayam Farm, the Jewish Farm School and others that work on both ends of the learning continuum, teaching the teachers and the learners.

A Green Fund created and guided by Jewish philanthropists can bring welcome and beneficial energies, wisdom and freshness to our community.

With these three initiatives: restoring a sacred engagement with the environment to the status of a fundamental mitzvah that commands our attention and behavior; creating mechanisms to green our Jewish built-environment; and providing the social, moral and financial leadership to make this happen, we can pursue our sacred mission, substantively and spiritually re-connect with many Jews, and contribute to the healing of this wounded world.