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by Bill Witherspoon
We were supposed to name all the animals. Lately we have gotten pretty good at it, While it begins to dawn on us that Even that slender branch of the tree of life (Let alone the one on which crawl the slime molds, Or the branch dotted with archaea microbes that turn salt ponds pink Or the one spread with green life that converts sunlight into food) Is just too prolific for words. Still, 500 animal species named since last Elul (150 of them the beetles of which She is “inordinately fond”) Is kind of impressive for an ape that, according to Earth time Only dropped from the fruit trees day before yesterday. Maybe we can be a blessing on creation, singing hallelujah With the answer machines in our palms. If, in this season of turning to look at ourselves We admit that our archery is wide of the target That it is time to ask directions of the keepers of indigenous knowledge How were we managing to keep it going For thousands of generations? Bill Witherspoon is a geologist-educator and for 20 years a Jew by choice. At Congregation Bet Haverim in Atlanta, he sings in its remarkable chorus and occasionally leads services. He is a native of East Tennessee where he was blessed with many visits to its huge national park throughout his formative years. Bill encourages fellow humans to check out Citizens Climate Lobby.
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by Rabbi David Seidenberg
The book of Numbers begins, “YHVH spoke to Moshe in the Sinai wilderness.” The midrash asks, why does it specify “in the Sinai wilderness”? Because the wilderness is ready to receive all people and belongs to no one. Just so, the Torah receives all people and belongs to no one, not even to the Jewish people. In the Shmitah year, we are similarly reminded that the land of Israel/Canaan/Palestine belongs to no one – that we are just “sojourners and temporary settlers” (gerim v’toshavim) on the land (Lev 25:23). The rabbinic word for belonging to no one is hefker. At the beginning of Passover, we declare that any chametz we still have in our dwellings is “hefker, ownerless, like the dirt of the ground”. Wilderness is by definition hefker. In the Shmitah year, all produce, everything growing from the ground, is automatically hefker. And the midrash also teaches that the way to receive Torah is to “make oneself hefker” (Tanchuma). Rashi explains a strange paradox concerning Shmitah-year produce in his commentary on Leviticus 25:5. The verse says, “your set-aside grapevines n’zirekha you may not store or hoard t’batzer”. According to Rashi, this means that even though anything in the field can be harvested by anyone – including the owner of the field – if the owner intends in their mind to set aside particular grapevines for their private use, they are davka not allowed to eat any grapes from those vines. This is also like the words of Torah: if you learn them to share them and teach them and do them, they can become yours, but if you “hoard” them and don’t put them to use for the benefit of others, they are not yours either. Rambam (Maimonides) also tells us that it is a violation of the Shmitah year to lock up or fence in one’s fields (Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Shmitah 4:24). That’s because they need to be accessible not just to any person, but to any wild animal, because, the Torah says, “all her produce will be for you for eating, and for your servants and for your hired worker and your stranger and for your domesticated animal and for the wild animal of the field” (Lev 25:6). This is one giant step toward the covenant between God and all the animals described by Hoshea: “I will break bow and sword and war from the land and they all will lie down in safety” (Hoshea 2:20). Maharal explains that Torah is given in the wilderness to show that Torah in its essence is separate from humanity and its materialism, just as wilderness, in order to remain wilderness, must remain separated from human greed and materialism (Tiferet Yisrael 26:5). But also, he teaches that Torah represents the highest fulfillment of what humanity can become, and contains exactly what each person needs in order to reach their own perfection, just as the wilderness contained what was needed for every single person among the children of Israel (Tiferet Yisrael, 16:8). Since our fields become a direct extension of wilderness in the Shmitah year, Shmitah puts us all in a state, literally and figuratively, to become hefker and to receive revelation, to receive anew the covenant. As we are approaching the end of the Shmitah year, we can ask ourselves, what revelation might we receive from living in Shmitah consciousness? Can Shmitah reveal to us how to fulfill the Torah’s mission to create a sustainable world, a world where we “choose life”? If we become like the wilderness, we become the very place in which Torah is revealed, and not just the subjects to whom Torah is revealed. If wilderness first means a place where one can venture off alone and separate from society, and if secondly can mean seeing all people as equal in relation to Torah (and to the land), in its fullest expression, it will mean welcoming the diversity of human beings that make up society, the vulnerable, the poor, the stranger, into one’s life, and the diversity of species that make up this world, into the circle of revelation, into the home of one’s spirit. May we be so blessed to travel those stages and reach those levels, so that when Hashem seeks a partner in revelation, the One will look upon us and say “you are My people”, and we will say, You are my God” (Hoshea 2:25). Rabbi David Mevorach Seidenberg is the creator of neohasid.org, author of Kabbalah and Ecology (Cambridge U. Press, 2015), and a scholar of Jewish thought. David is also the Shmita scholar-in-residence at Abundance Farm in Northampton MA. He teaches around the world and also leads astronomy programs. As a liturgist, David is well-known for pieces like the prayer for voting and an acclaimed English translation of Eikhah ("Laments"). David also teaches nigunim and is a composer of Jewish music and an avid dancer. by Asher Hillel Burstein Of love’s immortal way they said,
Cheat the grave her wonted siege. Garlands round your plot of earth, Home the wand’ring lights of I. Who now as all on edge of time, Toll the eager moonlit tide. No nuptial love has such a kind, That hopes for songs he cannot write. Nor knows a heart like his so dimmed, By sweet rejected notes; he aches. To share with one for whom he dies, By day, by night; so long the years. Of tears; his right to humble space, Immortal face, which none can see, For neither son nor song gives birth. To teeming trails of evergreen, But this, his woe, a roaming void. Beyond the hour closing fast, Yonder youth a memory. Shedding drops of Heaven’s dew, A claim to immortality. Asher Hillel Burstein is a poet and tunesmith from Long Island. A one-time rabbi and part-time cantor, he teaches in a yeshiva high school in Manhattan. Asher holds an M.A. in Jewish Studies from the Academy for Jewish Religion and an M.F.A. in Writing from Sarah Lawrence College. He is a doctoral candidate at Drew University where he also serves as an adjunct professor of Hebrew. by Rabbi Margaret Frisch Klein I live on the prairie, in the Prairie State of Illinois. Not a “Little House on the Prairie,” a big house, but there are vistas that remind me of that show. In a county that is known for its dairy farming. Borden Milk came from here. The library is Gail Borden Public Library. That Borden. The house across from the synagogue is known as the “Butterman’s House” because the prices for butter as a commodity were set there. There was even a documentary called “From Dairies to Prairies.” Once, before it was farmland, it was mostly prairie. Now there are only 6 square miles of prairie in all of Kane County. This past year in the Jewish liturgical calendar was a shmita year, a year the land lies fallow. Our congregation tends a community garden which feeds into the soup kettle’s nightly meal, wrestled with what to do. Should we not plant anything? Do we still need to continue to feed the hungry? What could we do for Tu B’shevat, the new year of the trees, where traditionally we start the seeds for the community garden. A compromise was reached. For every household, in the congregation, we sent seed paper in the shape of butterflies, enough seeds to plant a pollinator garden, a small butterfly garden, in the hopes that we could help restore the prairie to its natural state. We thought this would be important in terms of the long-term health of the environment. We envisioned increased wildflowers including milkweed, the only host plant for monarchs. Monarchs need milkweed for fuel as they migrate long distances between Mexico and southern Canada. We thought we’d see a return of bees and butterflies.  It was a small way to begin to heal the earth. To be partners with G-d in taking care of creation.
We didn’t know just how important it might be. Especially this year. This is the year that the International Union for Conservation has put the monarch butterfly on the endangered species list. In Elgin, there are groups that actually raise monarchs and release them. This year has been especially difficult for those groups. Christ the Lord Lutheran Church, who we partner with, sponsors The Monarch Ministry which reported very low survival numbers during the first generation. While milkweed is plentiful, pesticides make it unusable. When the chrysalises are formed and the Monarchs finally emerge, the caregivers rejoice and send them on their way. One Rosh Hashanah, when my daughter was a restless three-year-old, three generations traveled to Point Pelee National Park, the southernmost tip of Canada to see the migrating monarchs. We camped. We enjoyed apples, challah and honey. We blew shofar at dawn. It may have been my favorite Rosh Hashanah and the last we spent together with my dad, one of the first to use the term ecologist. As I began to write, I heard an old poem in my head, “The Last Butterfly” written by Pavel Friedman before his death in Terezin, collected in a book, I never saw another butterfly, and turned into a cantata as well. ”Butterflies don’t grow here in the ghetto” were his haunting last words. When I returned home from my hike in the Kame Prairie, I spied it. Milkweed that I had planted from the butterfly seed paper. Will it enable a monarch to return? I hope. We owe it to our children and children. We owe it to Pavel. What can you do?
In this season of teshuvah, return, help us heal the earth and return the prairie to its natural state. The Single Monarch White cotton candy clouds fluttering Deep blue sky Bright yellow native sunflower And there, just about the milkweed I spy it. A monarch Just one Fluttering Floating on air Riding the currents Darting back and forth From one milkweed pod to the next Black and orange Painted patterns Making me smile Carefree Hints of summer days long gone I wonder Are they carefree? How could they be? What have we done? Rabbi Margaret Frisch Klein is the rabbi at Congregation Kneseth Israel in Elgin, IL. She enjoys hiking through our local forest preserves, reveling in the beauty of creation and finding ways to preserve and conserve this earth in an age of climate change. She blogs as the Energizer Rabbi, www.theenergizerrabbi.org and serves as the co-president of the Coalition of Elgin Religious Leaders, on the leadership board at Ascension Saint Joseph Hospital and as a police chaplain. by Carol Reiman Illuminating fire of the burning bush.  Livestreaming ladder of angelic messengers.  Protecting voice of the she-ass, female with the weight of responsibility, birthing words of courage, seer of boundaries.  This is the place in which we have walked, oblivious or called.  Wandering, weeping by waters, reaching beyond and within.  Nurturing what was pulled from the reeds, allowing the land and its tenders to rest, leaving food at the edges for those in the margins.  Joy in first fruits, dancing in gratitude, peace in the soul.  Carol C. Reiman, making connections with new and old, they take in the world while visiting cats, mulling this and that. by Mirele B. Goldsmith, Ph.D. Not long ago, I visited Lake Itasca, the source of the Mississippi River. I was awed by the revelation that the Mississippi watershed extends to 40% of the United States and the river itself is 2,340 miles long. I was so moved that I spontaneously recited the blessing for fulfilling the commandment to immerse in living waters, the traditional blessing for visiting the mikveh (ritual bath.)  Jewish tradition teaches us to appreciate water. Water, we are taught in Genesis, existed before the creation of the world – an insight that resonates with the current scientific understanding that the Earth’s water emerged from the Big Bang and it is finite. In the vision of Ezekiel, water flows from the Holy Temple in Jerusalem to all corners of Earth; teaching us that we all connected through the water cycle. Rabbi Ellen Bernstein teaches that from the perspective of Earth, people, animals, and plants are all channels through which water flows in its journey from the atmosphere to the sea. In contrasting the hydrology of Egypt, which depends on the Nile for water, with that of the Land of Israel, which depends on rain, Dr. Jeremy Benstein points out that the Torah is teaching us that rain expresses the physical connection between heaven and Earth. I was at Lake Itasca, in Northern Minnesota, to join water protectors protesting the construction of Line 3. This pipeline, unfortunately now completed, brings dirty tar sands oil from Alberta to Wisconsin. When burned, this oil is even more destructive than oil from conventional sources, accelerating climate change and worsening the impacts. The Anishinaabe who called for people of faith to come to protest with them, also fought against the construction of Line 3 because it violates their treaty rights to collect manoomin (wild rice.) This right, called a usufructory right, depends on the clean water in which manoomin grows.  Before I went to Minnesota, I thought it was very far away. When I was there, my eyes were opened. We are all connected, not least through the water cycle. The molecules of water that flow through my body once traveled the Mississippi River, and soon will again. The water that nourishes the bodies and spirits of Native Americans on the White Earth Reservation, nourishes me. I pray that the joy of swimming in Lake Itasca will give me strength for the struggles ahead. In the powerful mantra of the Anishinaabe and water protectors around the world, “water is life.”
Dr. 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. Earth Etude for Elul 14 - This Elul, We Express Gratitude to Israel’s Leading Environmentalist9/9/2022 by David Krantz As Rosh Hashanah approaches, it’s customary for us to take stock — What have we done wrong? What could we be doing better? — but Rosh Hashanah is also a time to look back and consider the many ways we have been blessed. This Elul, as his time in Knesset likely (and unfortunately) comes to a close, we are particularly grateful to Aytzim cofounder and Knesset member Dr. Alon Tal, Israel’s leading environmentalist, for all he has done to improve the well-being of Israel’s land, plants, people and non-human animals.  Aside from co-founding Aytzim in 2001, Tal also has founded or co-founded a slew of other environmental initiatives, including and not limited to Adam Teva V’Din (the Israel Union for Environmental Defense), the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, Ecopeace: Friends of the Earth–Middle East, and Israel’s largest green party, HaMiflaga HaYeruka (formerly the Green Movement). No one else has had a greater impact than Tal on Israel’s landscape of environmental organizations.
As a co-founder of Aytzim and member of Aytzim’s board, Tal served as one of Aytzim’s representatives to the board of Keren Kayemet L’Yisrael (Jewish National Fund in Israel), helping to green KKL-JNF from the inside out. Along with Dr. Orr Karassin and Dr. Eilon Schwartz, Tal was responsible for leading Aytzim’s biggest efforts to green Israel, resulting in quadrupling the number of trees planted annually, changing the types of trees planted so that they would be suitable for Israel’s arid and semi-arid climate zones, and supporting bicycling by building and expanding bike trails, including trails circumnavigating the Kinneret (the Sea of Galilee) and running across the country. As an academic — at Ben-Gurion University and at Tel Aviv University, among others — Tal literally wrote the book on Israel’s environmental history. “Pollution in a Promised Land” is a must-read primer for anyone interested in Israel’s environment. His many other books and papers have all helped push sustainability issues toward the top of an Israeli agenda typically dominated by concerns about the economy and “the situation,” Israel’s euphemism for the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict. As the second-ever member of HaYeruka to join the Knesset, Tal has been a steadfast voice for sustainability in Israel. From helping establish parliamentary subcommittees and caucuses addressing climate, health and the environment — including caucuses to protect the Jerusalem Forest and to clean up Haifa Bay — to proposing about two dozen laws to support sustainability in Israel, to issuing more than 70 oversight queries to ministries to help ensure environmental laws are followed properly, Tal has been the most ardent sustainability advocate to ever walk the halls of Knesset. Although it is unlikely that Tal will return to Knesset — his low placement on the Benny Gantz-led Blue and White-New Hope list, revealed this week, means that it would take a miracle for Blue and White to receive enough votes for Tal to maintain his seat after elections in November — everyone who cares about Israel and its land and people owe a debt to Tal for his work. I would expect Tal to continue his lifelong work of greening Israel after leaving Knesset, but this Elul is an apt time to express gratitude: Thank you Alon! David Krantz is the President of Aytzim: Ecological Judaism. by Rabbi Steven Rubenstein Each year I choose a theme for my High Holy Day thoughts for my community, which they receive in written form. They are a continuation of the div’rei Torah that I write each week. An administrative assistant revealed to me that she enjoyed sitting down at her table on Saturday morning with her cup of coffee in hand to read my comments and to reflect upon them. From this admission I decided to devote this year’s theme to the Spirituality of Coffee.  When coffee first became popular in Europe, cafes were visited by intellectuals to discuss the politics of the day. Artisans gathered at night following their performances to unwind before going home to sleep. Today, people gather in coffee stores to meet with friends and family, to have intimate discussions. And students have been known to frequent the same places as though it were a library with fringe benefits, caffeine to keep them awake long enough to finish their papers or their studying. And in my research on coffee, in some cultures coffee breaks at work are a serious endeavor as people gather to eat cake, drink coffee, and converse with colleagues.
I have been known to say on occasion that “life begins with my second cup of coffee” at work, at my desk as I plan out my day or plug away at my administrative activities. I recently wrote a d’var Torah for Bereisheet where I joined the voices from midrash as the sages contemplated what kind of tree was in the center of the Garden of Eden that was singled out as the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. While they debated whether it was a grape vine, or a fig tree, or stalks of wheat, or an etrog (citron) ~ each of which contributed something to knowledge in the world. Another characteristic of the fruit from the tree in the center of the Garden of Eden is related to its aroma. As coffee is roasted, it releases a distinctive fragrance, tantalizing our senses. Is this the bush that God had placed in the middle of the garden to test us, to see if we could handle being “brewed awake”? For many of us who crave that first cup in the morning, it is as if we are expressing our gratitude each day for “waking up” to the opportunities that God places before us, to notice the beauty of the world in which we live with all of its vivid detail, in the same way that the shofar jars our bodies into an awakened condition. The caffeine does more than just open up our minds to clarity. It reminds us that coffee, along with other forms of vegetation, must be treated with the utmost respect for the way in which it is grown as well as the individuals whose job it is to harvest the beans, to dry them, to roast them, and to grind them before its nectar is served to us. Even more so is the time it takes to finish a cup of coffee. In this renewed state of mind, what better time for the soul to sit in company with my thoughts as I contemplate the personal events of my life and what I need to do to make life better ~ for me, my family, my residents, my co-workers... The bitter of the coffee with the sweetness of the milk and the sugar help with the contrasting opinions as they come across my mind with each sip, and a restored sense of awareness. I conclude my Rosh Hashanah Day 1 sermon with this final thought: “May the sound of the shofar no longer be a “brewed awakening,” but more so the means by which I might “espresso myself” in ways that diminish the daily “grind” that plagues us when we are not living out each day as God created each one of us, as our greatest selves.” Rabbi Steven J Rubenstein, BCC, is the Director of Spiritual Care at Jewish Senior Life in Rochester, NY. by Rabbi Michael Moskowitz The story is told about two people who are disputing ownership over a piece of land, each claiming that it belongs to them. A rabbi is consulted to offer a ruling in Jewish Law to decide the case. After carefully listening to the arguments of both sides he says “Ok, now I need to hear what the land has to say about it”. With quite a bit of hesitation, both parties finally agree to accompany the Rabbi to the parcel of land in question. The Rabbi kneels down, gently placing his ear to the ground. After a few moments, the Rabbi stands up and relates to the two concerned litigants: “The land says that you are both wrong. In the end you each will belong to it.”
We are in relationship with the Earth, and the Torah expects us to ensure that it is a healthy one. King Solomon reminds us, in Ecclesiastes 3:20, “All go to the same place; all originate from dust and all return to dust”. However, each of us must take ownership over our actions, and inactions, for the time in between. Adam, the original person whose name means “Earthling” and now includes all of humanity, is told “It is not good to be alone” and therefore God “made a helper against them” Genesis 2:18. The commentaries explain that this partnership is necessary lest a person make a mistake to think that they are completely self-sufficient and can live independent of the world around them. It is perhaps for this reason that the phrase “ki tov - it was good”, which is used to describe all other creations, is missing from Adam’s formation. Humans alone cannot be good - we must always honor the dynamic with our environment. This principle is reinforced with the odd language at the end of the verse “a helper against them”. It is understood that if we respect our role in relationships they can be supportive and helpful to us in becoming the best versions of ourselves. If however we are not acting appropriately, the natural consequence will be an opposition. Our Rabbis understand that this pushback is also beneficial feedback that is a healthy part of the goodness of coexistence. Constructive responses provide an opportunity to readjust and make informed course corrections, but only if we are ready to receive them. God spoke this world into existence through soft and gentle speech. Because of the harm we have caused it, the earth is now screaming out in rageful protest. If we continue to act as if we control the Earth, we will soon be reminded that it actually owns us. Rabbi Mike Moskowitz is the Scholar-in-Residence for Trans and Queer Jewish Studies at Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, the world’s largest LGBT synagogue. He is a deeply traditional and radically progressive advocate for trans rights and a vocal ally for LGBTQ inclusivity. Rabbi Moskowitz received three Ultra-Orthodox ordinations while learning in the Mir in Jerusalem and BMG in Lakewood, NJ. He is a David Hartman Center Fellow and the author of Textual Activism and Graceful Masculinity. His newest book Seasonal Resistance will be available this Winter. Rabbi Moskowitz’s writings can be found at www.rabbimikemoskowitz.com by Judith Black
Our beautiful planet will survive and rehabilitate itself. We will not. Not the animals, not the insects, not the glaciers, not the poles. Seeing one’s own extinction Standing on that precipice We still have a choice to make Will I sink into the couch Despair invading every pore Weeping for the duration Will I fight like hell Pushing legislators and industry Creating clean, healthy, just alternatives Will I tend my garden Caring and nurturing what remains Sharing my carrots Will I burrow into my soul re-connecting with the spirit of love turn into and radiate G-d’s love Maybe it’s not done. There are still choices How will I continue to act out the divine until I can act no more? Winner of the Oracle: Circle of Excellence, storytelling’s most coveted award, Judith’s been featured at The Montreal Comedy Festival, The National Storytelling Festival, The Smithsonian Institution, Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the National Art Museum in Cape Town, and NPR. She’s performed at over 10 CAJE conferences and explored B’nai Mitzvah, familial function and dysfunction, parenting, aging and end-of life, and in this past decade has moved her skills educate and activate around our climate crisis. She , most recently, is the winner of the National Storytelling Network 2022, Earth Up Conference slam. For more information about Judith’s work: www.storiesalive.com storiesalive@gmail.com |
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