by Rabbi Marisa Elana James In the park near my house is a large tree that fell last winter, the trunk slowly falling into decay thanks to four seasons of sun and rain and snow and wind transitioning it back to the soil. When I pass it on walks, I always stop to see what’s new on the slowly-rotting trunk, because I’ve learned that it’s just as beautiful as the living, flowering trees that surround it. Mushrooms can grow incredibly fast, seemingly appearing from one day to the next, helping break down dead wood while taking nourishment from it. And they don’t need to be exotic to be fascinating. My current favorite mushroom is the turkey tail: a wildly-common mushroom that can be found almost anywhere, in every season, growing in layered rows on dead wood. The big trunk in the park often has rows of turkey tails popping up, usually dark brown with lighter rings, sometimes tinged lavender to almost purple. And the landscape of the trunk changes regularly, especially after rain. Every year, as we enter Elul and approach the new Jewish year, I notice what I’ve lost over the previous year, but it’s often harder to see where I’ve grown. Like mushrooms after a night of rain, our growth often starts invisibly, and the evidence of our growth may seem to appear out of nowhere, unexpectedly. Renewal often depends on decay. The fall of the tree was dramatic, but the growth of the networks of turkey tails has been a slow blossoming, and for me, an unexpected blessing. We may think of teshuvah as only a returning to who and what we have been before, but we are more like trees than typewriters. We don’t reset to an original place; we grow into being fully ourselves in this season, in this year. We become who we are more deeply as we grow in new directions. This Elul, I’m taking my cue from the turkey tails, looking inside to see what small, beautiful things are growing and being nourished by the things I’m leaving behind. This Elul, I’m going to try to visit the tree daily, to remind myself that the dead wood in my soul can nourish the new growth. And this Elul, I bless us all with the ability to appreciate small miracles that emerge to delight us after a storm. Rabbi Marisa Elana James is Director of Social Justice Programming at Congregation Beit Simchat Torah. A graduate of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, she was previously a college English teacher, competitive ballroom dancer, insurance broker, student pilot, bookstore manager, and professional Torah reader. Marisa and her wife, contrabassoonist and translator Barbara Ann Schmutzler, live in New York City.
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by Rabbi Shira Shazeer Many months after the world changed
After worry, adjustment, connections lost and found Relearning how to live How to work How to family How to community After holding on Holding together Holding, holding, I took to the open road Family in tow To see the land and the wonder it holds To reach out and in and rediscover Who am I Wherever I am In this world I am no Thoreau Not Diana of the Dunes Alone with the world In quiet contemplation Rugged self sufficiency Blissful isolation I sought the beauty and peace of the world With a soundtrack of the sounds of children Filled with wonder, with hunger, with blisters With games, with worries, with joy With singing, with arguing, with whistling And nature teemed with humanity With so many people All searching for peace and awe All in need of relief Of renewal Of wonder All seeking something Beyond home, mask, screen One cool afternoon From a parking lot, slowly emptying We crossed the road and descended Sometimes it is necessary to descend Before we can rise. From the rim of an ancient volcano Into the crater Trees hanging on To the steep incline of rock and soil Down Down To the lake The water clear Blue Pure Guarded Humanity had come here Carefully Respectfully To love, and nurture To feel the power Of this pristine place We arrived late The throngs gone for the day Or leaving as we came At the top of a mountain In the crater of a volcano In the deepest, clearest, bluest lake I immersed body and soul The cold and wet Startling Spreading through my tired limbs and spiritual hiding places Numbing Soothing the pain and tension that build up there when I am too busy to notice Invigorating restorative fresh Living Water The world spins on Changing And unchanging I am ready to return Refreshed Rabbi Shira Shazeer spent this summer traveling and blogging on Shlepn Nakhes, the Great American Pandemic Road Trip with her husband and three children. She studied in the Scholars Circle at Drisha Institute for Jewish Education, received rabbinic ordination from Hebrew College in 2010, and looks forward to completing an additional masters in Jewish Education, with a focus on special education, in the coming year. After many years serving as school rabbi of a small Jewish day school, Rabbi Shazeer is looking forward to new professional adventures teaching in the learning center at Gann Academy starting this fall. by Mirele B. Goldsmith This Rosh HaShanah is also the start of the Shmita, the Sabbatical Year. The Torah’s Shmita focuses on land as the nexus of our relationship to Earth and demands that we let it rest from the damage caused by agriculture. To ensure that everyone can participate, all debts are released. During the Shmita year the produce of the land is shared so that everyone has what they need to survive. Today, Earth is threatened by the exploitation of fossil fuels that is causing damage that was unimaginable to our ancestors. But Shmita gives me hope. The underlying assumption of the commandment to observe Shmita is that transformation is possible. Not only can we change ourselves individually through teshuva, but we can change as a society. We can change the most fundamental rules by which we live to put our world on a sustainable path. Listen to The Seven Year Switch For six long years we’ve muddled along, this year we can right the wrong Why not try a change of pace, take a break from the rat race Listen to my Shmita pitch, get ready for the seven year switch Fertile fields are getting worn, we can’t keep planting so much corn Leave the chemicals at the store, fertilize just with manure Time to climb out of that ditch, get ready for the seven year switch Drilling for coal and oil and gas, ruining the land for short term cash Heating up the atmosphere, let’s stop it for the Shmita year We can’t afford even one more glitch, get ready for the seven year switch Mortgage, student, medical debt, the Torah says forgive and forget Release it so we’ll all be free, reduce the inequality The one percent are way too rich, get ready for the seven year switch The rules of the Sabbatical may sound very radical But if we are adaptable, we can make it practical Now’s the time to scratch that itch, let’s go ahead and make the switch! Mirele B. Goldsmith is co-chairperson of Jewish Earth Alliance, a national, grassroots network empowering Jewish communities to raise a moral voice for climate action to the US Congress. Words and music to The Seven Year Switch, copyright Mirele B. Goldsmith 2014 by Judith Felsen, Ph.D.
I awaken to a world uncertain of its future …Your will…??? I perceive an earth in conflict and divided …Divine design…??? I envision a tomorrow wondering and doubtful ...Heavenly plan…??? I imagine next year’s future knowing it may not arrive ...Exalted humbling…??? I experience uncertainty life’s newness in unknowns ...Celestial opening…??? I dissolve myself in guidance fused in trust ...Divine order… ??? I enroll as one in service building earth anew ...Majesty’s request…??? I become a vehicle of reconstruction grateful in employment by mankind ...My truth… … … © J. Felsen, Ph.D. 7/22/21 Judith Felsen, Ph.D. is a NYS licensed Clinical Psychologist, lover of Torah and Torah study, enthusiast of poetry and literature of the mystics, the natural world, teaching, exploring consciousness, learning, meditation, walking, hiking and most of life’s adventures. She is on the board of BHC, the Mt. Washington Valley Chavurah and Neskaya Movement Arts Center. A resident of Bartlett, N.H. Judith has lived on the edge of the White Mt. National Forest with her husband and two large rescue dogs where she is an active community member. Since covid she has resided in Long Beach, N.Y.. A 2nd generation Holocaust survivor and long Covid survivor. She and her husband love family, friends, the ocean, boardwalk, the garden, canine connections and deep relationships with the world of nature. Judith writes, offers consulting and gives dvar’s on Torah portions upon request. by Rabbi Judy Kummer
When this summer started, we in the Northeast were facing a drought. The levels of water in area lakes seemed to be down by as much as 4 feet, and rivers that should have been tumbling with early spring melt weren’t rushing and gurgling so much as dribbling, the vegetation on their nearby banks a droopy stunted mess. I was skeptical that the seedlings I had nurtured indoors all winter would survive if planted in my garden. And then, as we moved into summer, the rains began to fall. Where we gardeners may have expected an occasional rainfall to water our gardens, rainfall which would need to be supplemented with regular watering by hose, instead it has seemed that almost every day we have received rain — and these were no gentle summer showers; instead, torrents of rain have fallen, soaking and re-soaking already sodden ground. Tomato plants accustomed to warm baking weather have yellowed and wilted, and the mosquitoes have been having a field day in the jungle that has appeared almost overnight in my back yard. And all of this is in the face of a hellish contrasting image of terrible drought and wildfires in the western part of the US. My kishke/ internal response has gone in several directions. First, we do have a right to wish for things to be good in life! I think of the Talmudic sage Honi the Circle-Maker who earned his sobriquet during a drought, when he drew a circle around himself in the dust and told God he would not leave the circle until it would rain. A light drizzle began to fall, at which point Honi shook his fist at the heavens and demanded that God send down more substantial rains. When torrential rains began to fall, he again took issue with God and demanded rains of goodwill and blessing — at which point proper rains began to fall. It really is OK to be asking for just what it is that we need in life, and not be satisfied until we get it. And then, once our needs have been satisfied, the challenge is to shift our response away from a sense of scarcity and toward a sense of abundance and gratitude. While it’s always a good thing to conserve our blessings, setting up a water barrel -- physical or metaphoric -- to save blessings like water against a future drought, it’s also important that we express our gratitude and savor the blessings we have received in life. The overgrown plants in my back yard may be feeling to me like just too much — but when I give myself a chance to focus on them, I can be aware of the miracles present in my yard on an everyday basis. Expressing gratitude and really savoring our blessings are two gifts we can give ourselves, as if to underline the good fortune we are enjoying, deepening the experience of having received these gifts in life and as if watering our own souls. We live in a society plagued by a scarcity mentality, where more is always considered a good thing. What would it be like to try on a mentality of abundance, of “enough-ness,” and savor what we actually do have, rather than always wishing for more? And while we are thinking of “enough-ness,” perhaps we can harness the inclination in our hearts for “more, more, more” to feel energized in joining others and taking action to fight the environmental degradation that has tipped our natural world so out of balance. “Im lo achshav, aymatai?” we read in Pirke Avot, “if not now, when?” So how can we deal with having too much of a good thing? By setting up a rain barrel, conserving blessing to last beyond today. By savoring that blessing, expressing gratitude and finding a way to enjoy the jungle that ensues. By letting it spur us to take action around environmental degradation. May our efforts truly be blessed! Rabbi Judy Kummer is a board-certified chaplain working in person and remotely in her spiritual care private practice, Spiritual Support for Life’s Journey. Among the organizational work she has done, Rabbi Kummer has served as Executive Director of the Jewish Chaplaincy Council of Massachusetts for 18 years and and the Massachusetts Board of Rabbis for two years. She has worked as a chaplain at Hebrew SeniorLife and has served congregations in Washington DC, Long Island and New Jersey. She is a composer, contemporary liturgist, hiker, artist and organic gardener. She lives and gardens outside of Boston, MA. Earth Etude for Elul 9 - Environmental Justice and the Legacy of Redlining: A Call for Teshuvah8/16/2021 by Courtney Cooperman
Jewish teachings about environmental stewardship emphasize our responsibility to protect Creation for future generations. In the Garden of Eden, God instructs Adam and Eve: “Take care not to spoil or destroy My world, for if you do, there will be no one to repair it after you” (Midrash Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7:13). Although Judaism frames our responsibility to care for the planet in forward-looking terms, our commitment to environmental protection demands that we look backwards, too. The concept of teshuvah requires that we consider the connection between historic injustices and who bears the burdens of environmental harm. In North America, People of Color are disproportionately exposed to environmental hazards and lack equal access to environmental benefits. This concept, known as environmental injustice, was first articulated by grassroots leaders of Color in the 1980s. As the white-led, mainstream environmental movement focused on the degradation of nature, People of Color organized around the environmental harms affecting their own communities: the contaminated water they drank, the polluted air they breathed, and the toxic waste sites in their neighborhoods. The concentration of environmental harms in Communities of Color is the product of centuries of systemic racism, including a New Deal-era policy called redlining. During the Great Depression, the federal government established the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) to provide emergency relief and support homeownership. HOLC created “residential security maps” to determine the supposed “riskiness” of lending in any given neighborhood, explicitly basing its designations on race rather than proof of creditworthiness. HOLC mapped white neighborhoods in green, labeling them safe investments, and Black neighborhoods in red, deeming them unsuitable borrowers. Federal disinvestment from Black communities drove down property values, making these neighborhoods more attractive to projects that required a lot of cheap land—like highways and industrial sites, which are made with heat-absorbing asphalt and concrete. Decades later, in a warming world, communities of Color are suffering the consequences. Formerly redlined neighborhoods are an average of five degrees Fahrenheit warmer than non-redlined neighborhoods within the same metropolitan areas. Meanwhile, green-rated neighborhoods enjoy the benefits of denser tree canopy, which provides shade and cools down streets. Redlining bears significant responsibility for the racially inequitable impact of climate change. To address the intersecting crises of climate change and systemic racism, our country must collectively repent and make amends for the sin of redlining. For those of us who benefit from policies that subsidized white wealth-building and left Black families behind, we must do our own personal teshuvah, acknowledge our complicity in an unjust system, and work to repair its ongoing harms. Courtney Cooperman is a 2020-2021 Eisendrath Legislative Assistant at the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. Her policy portfolio includes environmental and climate justice, economic justice and labor issues, reproductive rights, hate crimes, and international religious freedom. She studied Political Science at Stanford University, where she wrote an honors thesis on homelessness as an obstacle to political participation. Originally from New Jersey, she currently resides in Washington, D.C. by Benjamin Weiner
On the road to the farmstore in my electric car, the baby starting to doze in her safety seat, and the man in his cold British tones, explaining to the listeners an inexorable future of unmanageable heat, and the hostess says: I’m sorry, but that’s all the time we have, and she moves on to the new war in Afghanistan. In the mornings, when I wake too early, and hear the sound of cars on the highway by my door, I lie as still as possible, willing the fixity I can no longer uncover in the outer world to sink into my bones. When the baby comes in, I hold her with vague arms, and stroke the softness of her skin, and run my fingers through her red-black hair like a comb, and say a little prayer in my head to ward away the pleasure that will only hurt me in the end. I go downstairs and, for a brief moment, cower in the beauty of my bursting son, then outside to a grey rainless sky, the garden in bloom, no longer by divine right, but accident, the maple, tall and proud like a grandfather who doesn’t know he’s dying, and-- when it isn’t the panic, it's just the dull relentless ache of nothing certain but mortal change, and things not being what I want. Benjamin Weiner is the spiritual leader of the Jewish Community of Amherst. He lives with his wife and two children on their three-acre homestead farm in Western Massachusetts. By Susie Davidson When people admire my frequent traveling, I always say yes, but it's budget travel. "But that's the best way to really see places," they usually respond. It's true. Not only do I get to mingle with locals and walk all over, but on buses and trains, you see the outer landscapes. You see the fields, the hills, the bodies of water, the crops and the grazing animals. When lucky, you see the coast. And when super lucky, you see the trees. "I think that I shall never see/A poem lovely as a tree," wrote Joyce Kilmer in 1914. "A tree whose hungry mouth is prest/Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;/A tree that looks at God all day,/And lifts her leafy arms to pray," he beautifully and aptly continued. And he humbly finished: "Poems are made by fools like me,/But only God can make a tree." This is spiritually true. The Torah contains many passages that praise trees, and warn against cutting them down. And in Deuteronomy 15:27, Rabeynu Bachya said the 12 springs before them in Elim represented the 12 tribes, and the 70 palm trees, the 70 then nations of the world. In a July 14 Boston Globe op-ed about the current climate crisis, Marie E. Antoine and Stephen C. Sillett of Humboldt State University of California referred to trees as "one part of the solution growing all around us." They explained how trees alone can’t save the world, but can help. "Few organisms are as incredible as giant trees," they wrote. "Contemplate the sheer magnitude of what they do. A tiny seed finds a nook for germination. The seedling roots connect to symbiotic soil fungi. The sapling forages for resources — light, water, nutrients. The treetop grows hopefully ever upward... Its lifespan may be long enough for human civilizations to rise and fall." Human awareness and behavior certainly seem to fall far more than rise. But Antoine and Sillett, calling trees "biodiversity refuges and massive carbon sinks," find some salvation. "They occupy only a small portion of the planet’s surface, but they store huge amounts of carbon and provide critical arboreal habitat," they write. During the pandemic, people headed outdoors and rediscovered the joys of walking in nature. They felt its healing, calming influence. They breathed in the negative ions, and a connection that had been lost in all of the hustle and bustle of life as we knew it. The trees were waiting for us, giving, not taking, as always. Our sages well understood this. In "A Garden of Choice Fruits (Shomrei Adamah, 1991), Rabbi David E. Stein cited Rabbi Abraham ben Maimonides: "In order to serve God, one needs access to the enjoyment of the beauties of nature – meadows full of flowers, majestic mountains, flowing rivers. For all these are essential to the spiritual development of even the holiest of people." On April 25, five days before Arbor Day, Globe columnist Thomas Farragher featured Boston arborist Max Ford-Diamond, who cares for the health and wellbeing of some 40,000 area trees.
"This is a guy who helps put the emerald in the Emerald Necklace," Farragher wrote. The outlook for Boston is encouraging. “Each year, we plant between 1,000 and 1,600 trees,” Ford-Diamond explained. “This year, we’re hoping to plant 2,000 trees. We got a very large increase in our budget, thanks to the City Council. We went from $750,000 to $1.7 million.” "That’s a lot of trees," Farragher marvels. We need every single one. Tu BiShvat is called "Rosh HaShanah La'Ilanot," or "New Year of the Trees." It is a grand, green festival in Israel, when trees are planted and environmental awareness is observed. Susie Davidson, a Boston-based journalist, is a columnist for Wicked Local | Gannett | USA Today Network. She has contributed to HuffPost, the Houston Chronicle, the Forward, the Jewish Advocate, JewishBoston.com, Haaretz, JPost and other national and international media. She is currently writing a book on the history of protest music for Charlesbridge Publishing. by Rabbi Megan Doherty I am a terrible gardener. But I garden anyway. I hate weeding. I water my plants too much, or too little. I don’t know from fertilizer, or mulch, or those fancy cages which keep out the deer and the birds. I live in rural Ohio, and when I look at the the thriving mini-farms my neighbors create and tend, I want to throw my hands up in despair. But I plant. One year, my dad showed up at our house with a bunch of lumber and built raised beds in our backyard. The process was a beacon for awestruck kindergartners, who showed up with wide eyes and endless questions and were eventually allowed to ‘help’. Our next-door neighbor brought us a truck bed full of soil. So every spring, I select seed packets in a fit of blind optimism. I carefully follow the directions for depth and distance, giving each seed no more than its place and no less than its space. I even start out mindfully watering. I go out in the cool magic of early morning, or the rose-gold of twilight, to offer what care I can to the thirsty potential hiding under the dirt. But then it rains, and it throws me off my schedule. Weeds creep in, and I don’t catch them before they put down roots and decide to stay awhile. (It’s hard to argue with them - I also think this piece of land is a beautiful spot to raise a family.) I travel, for work and for fun, and no one else remembers to check on the plants. I come home to beds that look like jungles, parched earth, and a feeling that I can’t possibly ever get back any control, or make this space more beautiful. But then one day, in late July or early August, I wander past the vibrant overgrowth of the beds (which I have been looking away from in shame for days or weeks) and I find tomatoes. Giant cucumbers. Purple beans and sweet peas. Just waiting to be noticed and plucked from their vines. The bounty stuns me. I am in awe of the way the peas and beans are using the weeds for scaffolding. The cucumbers looping and whirling their way over the tops of the beds and almost on to the lawn. Bright orange tomatoes smugly growing over and around the lamb’s ear and crabgrass trying to horn in on their turf. Every year in Elul I reflect on the distance between who I am and who I aspire to be. And, in a good year, I pull back and reflect even on my aspirations. Is my heart’s focus on the shiny promotion, the dream fellowship, the glorious rows of corn my neighbor grows? Or is my soul craving a chance to shape my community, to deepen my learning and my friendships, to celebrate the miracle of food grown from sunshine, water and dirt. I am a terrible gardener. But my garden still grows. Rabbi Megan Doherty (she/her) is the Director of Hillel and Campus Jewish Life at Oberlin College. She is a graduate of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. She is a certified Jewish Mindfulness Meditation Instructor through the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, and is a graduate of the Hartman Institute's Fellowship for Campus Professionals. She has an extensive background in facilitation and mediation, and is a state-certified mediator in the state of Ohio. She serves on the board of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, and was a founding co-chair of the Reconstructionist Movement’s Israel Commission. She lives (and attempts to garden) in Oberlin, Ohio, with her partner, their daughter, and their dog. by Harvey Michaels Moses’ final message from G-d: This day…I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live. For millennia we have reflected on what it means to choose life; realizing that it is not always our life we’re choosing – our choices are more about our children and theirs; our communities, and our world. What does it mean to Choose Life for the Earth? In recent years, I’m privileged to ask this question to classrooms of talented young people, and learned that when given the space to creatively engage this question, informed by science and their hearts, good choices come to light. These students are Nerds for the Earth - not only learning but seeing what others haven’t yet seen; many then choose life with career paths towards making our world a better place. Love for Earth is Universal. A remarkable cross-section of America gathered for the first Earth Day in 1970, in retrospect a holy day of teshuva when we first asked: will we fix the messes we’ve made of this world? We then chose life with profound actions to remove poisons from our air and water. Today, addressing climate, our mission is again clear: to repair the Earth by transitioning from fossil fuel use quickly, with Environmental Justice by helping those most impacted by the worsening plagues of fire, sea level rise, and extreme weather. To choose life for our Earth, we must learn. We need courage to act, but also collective wisdom for our choices to result in a true solution. Our wisdom is improving: most of us have learned that climate change is a real problem, and was caused by our choices to burn fossil fuels. What many of us haven’t learned is that there still is hope - it is possible to stop climate change in time to prevent the worst effects; it’s not too expensive, and makes our lives better. But let’s learn the specifics; how our home heat, travel, food must change. To choose life for our Earth, we must act together. The true question about hope is not can we, but will we? Like the first Earth Day, we can come together – but not by linking climate action to a political or age group. A good Earth is for all of us: let’s share the joy of healing it from climate change. At age 16, Greta Thunberg taught us: climate education builds conviction to unite behind the science. When millions joined her Friday strikes, world leaders listened to them, and many young people she inspired began to find their own paths as Nerds for the Earth. She and they in turn inspire me to keep doing, keep teaching, keep learning – frequently from them. A lovely day, in a beautiful place, especially with people we love, is a holy place that will live on in our hearts. But so many are now being driven from their holy places by plagues brought by climate change; and the profound moments we experience today in our holy places might not be there in years to come – unless we choose to learn, act, and help others. Choosing Life to repair the Earth is a choice we have; in service for all who want to learn, all who need our help, and all that will follow us. Harvey Michaels enjoys being an MIT faculty member, teaching and learning about Energy and Climate Innovation, while investigating climate plan initiatives for cities, the state and federal government. He also engages in environmental justice advocacy, participating in JCAN, GBIO, and synagogue initiatives, among others. Before returning to MIT in 2008, Harvey led an energy efficiency company for many years. |