by Maxine Lyons Doing teshuvah means to me being responsible for turning toward my better or higher self to improve personal relationships and as well as performing my share for all beings in this coming year. I feel more responsible to contribute to and join others in actions that promote more beneficial positive actions for climate change. In that spirit of responsibility and commitment, I am also honoring the memory of Rachel Carson and her impactful and revolutionary book, Silent Spring. She advocated that each generation had to reevaluate its relationship to the natural world as no one had done decades previously. Her important legacy provided insight and scientific knowledge about the future of life and its sustainability, as well as sustaining our human spirits. Her research, writings and actions proved how many chemicals were corrupting the earth and she focused on our self-preservation and for the preservation of the ecosystems of the earth. In that spirit, she wrote that, "It seems reasonable to believe that the more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for the destruction of our race. Wonder and humility are wholesome emotions, and they do not exist side by side with a lust for destruction.” May we each do our as part of our teshuvah to attend to our personal and global concerns. Maxine Lyons is more energetically responding to local and personal commitments in retirement, as an advocate and activist in several areas. As a retired professional, a mother and grandmother she believe it is her responsibility to contribute in her ways to improve life and possibilities for others in a renewed way.
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by Rabbinic Pastor De Fischler Herman What is the color of forgiveness? Is it pink, delicate as the bloom of a Peace rose? Is it green, refreshing like the mist from the sparkling sea? Is it red, warm as the rock in the desert sand? Is it yellow, bright as the sunflower in summer's field? Is it blue, cool as the water under the azure sky? Is it brown, rich like the soil beneath our weary feet? Is it black, dark like the night surrounding each of us? It must be white, reflecting God's light Crafting peace Healing wounds Spreading love Holding all. De Fischler Herman received smicha from the ALEPH Ordination Program and served as Hospice Chaplain. Now in "retirement," she writes, makes art, grows vegetables, rides her bike, and does climate activism in her Takoma Park, Maryland community. De also serves on the Jewish Earth Alliance Steering Committee and is a volunteer docent at the American Visionary Art museum in Baltimore.
by Nina Beth Cardin For seventy years this earth has cared for me. It has sustained my body with gifts from its own; given me firm places to take a stand and soft places to lay my head; it has thrilled me and comforted me, delighted me and frightened me. It has cradled my children and helped them grow. And it has done all this asking only one thing in return: “Tend well to me so that I may tend well to others after you.” For the last fifteen years I have tried to live up to this request. I have worked in the environmental arena to strengthen places, people and laws that protect the earth. I have done what I could to plant fruit trees, champion environmental rights, promote environmental justice, cheer community gardens and celebrate urban forest patches. And I compost. But I know I have also fallen short. I came late to the game; my house consumes more energy than it should; my diet can be more earth-friendly than it is. The balance sheet between me and earth does not even out. I will try fix that in the years left to me. And when my time is done, I hope to offer a final gesture of teshuvah, an expression of return and gratitude –- and be placed in the earth plain and simple. I am one of several folks here in Baltimore working to create a natural, green cemetery for the Jewish community where our bodies can be returned to the earth without liners, concrete vaults or other obstacle delaying what will eventually be reclaimed anyway. It seems the least we can do for all the good the earth has done for us, a humble way to offer thanks. And a way to offer a gesture of hope - and teshuvah – to future generations, that their journey on earth be healthier, wiser and more balanced than ours. Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin is an environmental activist whose latest initiative is working to create a green cemetery for the Jewish community of Baltimore.
by Nina Judith Katz I like to spend time playing with plants, both in the woods and in the garden. There is something profoundly grounding about connecting deeply with the earth, whether through my feet feeling the tree roots as I walk a forest trail or my hands burrowing in as I wildcraft, weed, plant, and harvest. This grounding helps me feel my place in the world: among the plants, part of their world, their roots merging with mine. Through them, I feel my own place in the world. As I both weed and harvest weeds, I think a lot about them and the labels we cast on them. So much that we are used to rejecting is actually useful, from the highly nutritious amaranth and purslane that can feed us from late spring into autumn to the goldenrod that can treat allergies, colds, and UTIs to the Japanese knotweed that can nourish us and treat Lyme. The weeds remind me not to reject anyone too hastily; we are all both helpful and harmful. The plants also remind me, again and again, to speak out against xenophobia—whether towards humans or plants—and other forms of bigotry. Their benefits remind me that we need to help feed, nurture, and heal each other. Their malignment reminds me that we need to disrupt this impulse to malign. Many of the weeds also take in both water and nutrients from deeper in the earth than the more celebrated cultivars. The weeds that do this share some of the water and nutrients with other plants, as they do their healing compounds. We, too, must get better at sharing resources. Purslane, a delicious plant uncommonly rich in Omega 3s and good at taking up water and nutrients from deeper than its neighbors and sharing them As we engage in tshuva, the annual process of turning ourselves over and returning to our deepest selves, turning over the soil and returning to our green world can help us find our way. Nina is a writer, editor, Ma'yan Tikvah teacher, herbalist, and gardener.
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