by Rabbi Judy Schindler Dear Mother Earth,
As we spiritually make our way through the month of Elul and approach the anniversary of your and our creation, you are in our prayers for healing. An illness extends across the globe – COVID-19. We know that you can feel it. You wonder why people wear masks when the air should be so perfect to inhale. You cringe that we have come to fear rains and their floods, winds and their consequent hurricanes, when instead we should stand in awe of the miraculous cycles of your natural world. We have learned many lessons during the pandemic. Mother Earth, we have learned how beautiful you are. As we have stopped during the year gone by, we have learned that our busyness – so much of our driving, our flying, our racing from place to place -- was at your expense. We are called human beings but we have forgotten how to be – in relationship with ourselves, with our neighbors, and with you. In Genesis, we were given simple instructions. Adam, the first human being, was created from adamah, the earth. He was placed in the garden, and he, and consequently we, were given a two-fold obligation, “to till it and to tend it.” Boundaries were set so that as we labored over the land we would protect it. One day a week, the earth gets Shabbat. One year in seven, the earth gets shmita, a sabbatical year of lying fallow for rejuvenation. Mother Earth, we have learned that we are all interconnected. What happens in China, what happens in India, what happens in Washington, impacts us all – whether COVID-19 or climate change. In harming you, we have harmed our neighbors. Cities across our globe have been segregated by socioeconomic status where almost all outcomes are determined by the lot of land on which our children are born – educational outcomes, health outcomes, exposure to environmental harm. Not only is humanity facing a pandemic, but you are sick, too. Your temperature is increasing. Your symptoms are getting worse. The longer we wait to act, the more you and consequently we are struggling with extreme weather. We are so sorry for our neglect. Mother Earth, Your treatment requires a change of behavior - our turning from our dependence on fossil fuels to green energy. The time is now - to love God and love our neighbor through our love of you. Hafiz, a 14th century Muslim writer, wrote a poem called A Love Like That. Even after all this time the sun never says to the earth, "You owe Me." Look what happens with a love like that. It lights the whole sky. The earth would die if the sun stopped kissing her. Mother Earth, may we, like the sun, kiss you and love you daily through our actions, tending to you and healing you. Mi shebeirach, may the one who blessed our ancestors, bless and heal you, O earth, and enable us to do the same. Amen. Rabbi Judy Schindler is the Sklut Professor of Jewish Studies and the Director of the Center for Peace and Social Justice at Queens University of Charlotte, and Rabbi Emerita of Temple Beth El in Charlotte.
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Earth Etude for Elul 3 - Joining Fifty Years of Mystic River Watershed Environmental Advocacy8/10/2021 By Karen L. Grossman In 2009, I was invited to get involved with the Mystic River Watershed Association (MyRWA), established in 1972 with a long, hard mission of environmental advocacy. As a board member for 10 years, I was able to admire how we partnered with other groups to champion environmental changes for MA, pursuing concerns with land use and transportation, involving the location of the Alewife Red Line Station, a highway building moratorium, the Amelia Earhart Dam completion, and greenway connectivity into Boston. While tabling at events, I spread the word that MyRWA counteracted pollution and development, had targeted Grace Chemical’s responsibility for the childhood leukemia cluster in Woburn, MA and other local Federal Superfund and toxic waste sites like at the Wynn Casino property where after cleanup, they created a living shoreline along the Mystic River. Our advocacy, beginning in 2012, helped rebuild the Mystic Lakes Dam and beyond with fish ladders including recently at Horn Pond. Watching the fish on the fishcam, I rejoiced when the counts in the Mystic River herring migration tripled to 750,000! My biggest challenge was obtaining a hundred prize donations for the Annual Herring Run and Paddle Races. I also participated in cleanups, sponsored “Reverse Tashlich” and “Plastover” with my Temple, advocated for legislation, and attended MyRWA conferences and talks. Travelling to cities and towns in the watershed was a great opportunity for me to discuss climate change resilience. The main Mystic River/Lakes now have an EPA Water Quality Grade of A-! I continue to support a vision focused on a better future. Since I joined nearly 50 years of persistence, my part in environmental action continues to evolve along with MyRWA’s! As a result of my involvement over the years, I have embraced the conscientious attitude I need to alter my own bad habits by minimizing single use plastic and composting natural kitchen waste, doing my best to improve the environment. I hope you’ll think about how you can contribute to this movement, too!
Karen L. Grossman is a retired speech and language pathologist, a member of Temple Shir Tikvah, Winchester, MA’s Adult Social Committee, past Board member of the Mystic River Watershed Association, presently on the Outreach and Development Committees, and President of the Friends of Spy Pond Park, Arlington, MA. She welcomes your comments to karen.myrwa@gmail.com regarding the above ideas and refers you to: www.mysticriver.org for more details of MyRWA’s history leading up to the 50th anniversary of the organization. by Andy Oram What is heaven? How does one earn the right to enter heaven? I speculated on these questions by examining the Hebrew word for heaven, which is "shama'im" (שָׁמַיִם). The word is somewhat odd because it's plural, as indicated by the "im" (ים) ending. Here is my parsing of the word.
If "shama'im" (שָׁמַיִם) is plural, what's the singular? Take off the plural ending, and the singular appears to be simply "sham" (שָׁמ), which is Hebrew for "there." Basically, heaven is just multiple "theres". Each of us has a "there" we would like to reach--an ideal self that we are trying to achieve. And each person has a different "there," because we each have different aspirations and strengths. I think the Hebrew word is telling us that you can't get into heaven by achieving just your own goals. You may get "there" yourself, but it stands alone. But by helping other people achieve their goals in life, you can reach multiple "theres". We all need to reach the ecological "there" of 350 parts per million maximum of carbon to create a "shama'im" (the sky) that can sustain our lives. A Chasidic midrash explains why Moses took a half-shekel from each Israelite (Exodus 30:13) in order to do a census, when a whole shekel would be easier to collect. According to the midrash, the half-shekel indicated that no Israelite could feel whole by themselves; they needed all the other Israelites. If all of us could help each other achieve our "theres", maybe we'd be in heaven. Fussy grammatical notes: My etymology of "shama'im" (שָׁמַיִם) is spurious, but it's still a legitimate basis for a commentary. The true origin of the word is obscure, but it is shared by most Middle Eastern languages, as described in a Wiktionary entry in Hebrew. Wiktionary suggests that the true root is שמה, not שם. The singular is never used, whatever it may be. The root might be derived from "height" or "big." Furthermore, if one were to accept "shama'im" as a normal Hebrew word, the second "a" in the usual vocalization represents a pair, not a normal plural. Still, this kind of plural can be used for any collection of more than one. Andy Oram is a writer and editor in the computer field. His editorial projects have ranged from a legal guide covering intellectual property to a graphic novel about teenage hackers. Print publications where his writings have appeared include The Economist, the Journal of Information Technology & Politics, and Vanguardia Dossier. He has lived in the Boston, Massachusetts area for more than 30 years. He self-published a memoir, "Backtraces: Three Decades of Computing, Communities, and Critiques", and his poems have been published in Ají, Arlington Literary Journal, Conclave, Genre: Urban Arts, Heron Clan, Offcourse, Panoply, Soul-Lit, and Speckled Trout Review. by Rabbi Enid C. Lader An etude is a short musical composition, typically for one instrument, designed as an exercise to improve the technique of the player. Is it finger dexterity? Bowing alacrity? Air control? Rhythmic concentration? Standing beneath a canopy of trees I hear the rhythm of their rustling leaves I feel the heavenly breath of the breeze, A breath so controlled it seems to last forever. The tiny birds fly this way and that, Alighting on one branch and darting off to the next With a grace and alacrity that only practice can bring. The river’s waters easily make their way over jutting rocks and stones, Taking the ascents and descents with ease. Nature takes her etudes in her stride. It doesn’t come so easily for us. Elul reminds us that it is time to turn to our soul’s etudes – As we seek to return to – to improve – our best selves. How can we be better aware of our body’s rhythm as we rustle though our days? What can we do to appreciate each breath, as we wake to each new day? How can we make our way from moment to moment…person to person… with grace and alacrity? What we can do to ease our way through life’s ups and downs? It takes finding the right teacher. It takes making the time. It takes concentration. It takes practice. Enid C. Lader is the rabbi at Beth Israel – The West Temple, in Cleveland, Ohio and received ordination from the Academy for Jewish Religion in 2010. For the past eight years, every three months Enid has led members of her congregation on a Shabbat b’Tevah – a Shabbat morning walk through one of the beautiful Metroparks in the area, celebrating Shabbat and the changing seasons of the year. by Rabbi Katy Z. Allen We are rolling around to Elul now on the Jewish calendar. It feels too soon, and yet, it also feels right on time. Too soon, because Elul always comes too soon. I'm never really ready. And right on time, because it's impossible to be ready. The clock ticks, the calendar days fly by, and IT arrives, whatever IT may be. A wedding, a birth, death, the start of a new school year, Shabbat, a difficult conversation – whatever it is we are awaiting, it always comes too soon – or sometimes not soon enough – and it always comes on time. And so, we pull out the shofar to begin blowing -- or hearing -- it every morning, a reminder to wake up and get ready for the Yamim Noraim, the Days of Awe, and the super-intensity of trying to let go of our defects and come closer to the Mystery. We acknowledge that summer will again draw to a close, always too soon. We watch the sun set earlier each day and light our Shabbat candles earlier each week, but always, always, on time, on their time, on the time of the Universe and of G!d.
Welcome to this year's Earth Etudes for Elul, which will start Sunday evening, written by environmentalists, poets, rabbis, and others, bits of reflection and wisdom on Earth and teshuvah for your journey through this month. Enjoy and b'hatzlachah - good luck with this year's efforts for personal change! If you would like to subscribe to the blog, click here or use the link at the upper right. Elul tov – may you have a good and wondrous Elul. Rabbi Katy Allen is the founder and rabbi of Ma'yan Tikvah - A Wellspring of Hope, which holds services outdoors all year long, and the founder and President pro-tem of the Jewish Climate Action Network-MA. She is a board certified chaplain and a former hospital and hospice chaplain. She received her ordination from the Academy for Jewish Religion in Yonkers, NY in 2005 and lives in Wayland, MA with her spouse, Gabi Mezger, who leads the.singing at Ma'yan Tikvah. 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 Katy Allen Perfection - I've been thinking about it a lot. Intellectually, I know I can't be perfect. Inside me, in hidden spaces, I feel like I'm not supposed to make mistakes. Which would, of course, mean seeking perfection. Perfection is supposed to belong only to G!d, though I'm not sure I know what that means. Sometimes, when I'm able embrace my humanness, it's incredibly freeing to acknowledge that I don't have to be perfect. But I also realize there's a balance between not trying to be perfect all the time and not trying to never make mistakes. I experience different kinds of feelings when I think about striving toward being a better person all the time versus when I consider in a particular moment what I need to do to be as whole as possible in a particular instant and situation. Those ways of thinking are very different. Considering the moment, just this particular moment, feels doable. Thinking that I must constantly seek to improve and always strive to do the right thing becomes overwhelming.
As a climate activist, when I consider climate change, environmental injustice, and the destruction of our environments, I can feel that sense of being overwhelmed. Listening to people confidently profess that we can absolutely turn around the course of climate change also feels like a tremendous burden that I cannot bear. But when I stop trying to seek perfection regarding the planet and justice, I can also let go and feel a release. When I acknowledge that climate change is already happening and communities are already being devastated, and that this is simply our present reality, not my personal responsibility to fix and to create perfection in the world, I can touch my truer better self. I can let go of the weight upon my shoulders. Neither of these mean that I stop believing we must act, but they take off the pressure. Letting go of a need to achieve perfection in the global sphere makes it easier to breathe and to think just as it does in my personal life. Beginning during Elul and climaxing on Yom Kippur, Jewish tradition, articulated in our liturgy, makes it abundantly clear that we humans are very far from perfect. This Elul, may I fully embrace that reality. May I enter into this season of reflection and atonement humbly putting aside the need to always be right. Rabbi Katy Allen is the founder and rabbi of Ma'yan Tikvah - A Wellspring of Hope, which holds services outdoors all year long, and the founder and President pro-tem of the Jewish Climate Action Network-MA. She is a board certified chaplain and a former hospital and hospice chaplain. She received her ordination from the Academy for Jewish Religion in Yonkers, NY in 2005 and lives in Wayland, MA with her spouse, Gabi Mezger, who leads the singing at Ma'yan Tikvah. by Carol Reiman
Scroll turners, wooden handles, trees of life, our thumbs evolved, rolled down from years to screens; Leading us through dry sands, streams, times of manna, now of drought; Fires of the burning bush, now woods flaming by dream homes; Wanderers yearning for place, kinship of community, ability to thrive; Where do we take our strength? When do we listen to the land, to those who warn us of what comes? Are we as sturdy as our hopes, As fragile as our whims, Intemperate in our senses, Inconsistent in our care? Lest our drives consume us, Let us rest in the shadows, Break of day or rim of stars, Calm the breath, Listen for the source Of streaming bounty, Filling the cup Of thought, body, soul, Nestling us in gentleness, Fluidity, adaptation, Creation again, Rolling us Into life... Carol Reiman’s spiritual resources include Rabbi Katy’s reminders of calm, Jewish and Unitarian Universalist sources, the arts, cats, and human connections. |