by Rabbi Katy Z. Allen
At first glance, our Torah portion, Nasso, begins mildly: “The
Lord spoke to Moses: Take a census of the Gershonites.”
Take a census. Count the number of people in your community.
Simple enough. A continuation of what was happening in last week’s parashah, BaMidbar.
But let’s look a little deeper.
How many were the Israelites at that time? All the peoples
of the Ancient Near East? Of the Earth? How many are we now?
The Atlas of World Population History estimates the world
population in 2000 BCE was 27 million and in 1000 BC 50 million, the time
period when the Israelites were counting their numbers.
Today’s world Jewish
population is about half the entire world population 4000 years ago – something
more than 13 million. The entire human population today is well over 7 billion, about 275
times what it was at that time.
Imagine if there were
suddenly 275 times more dandelions, or 275 times more mosquitoes in your yard. Something
tells me there would be an impact on your yard and on you.
We humans have an impact on
planet Earth. We cannot help but do so, for we inhabit nearly every nook and
cranny of it. We impact the soil, the water, the air, the lakes, the mountains,
the glaciers, the oceans. And we are feeling the impact of our impact. We worry
if the water we drink is safe. We worry about super storms. We worry about the
air we breathe and the food we eat.
In April, the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its fifth report on the status
of climate change, including widespread observed current impacts. In early May,
the US Climate Change Research Program released the Third National Climate
Assessment, which details the current impact of climate change on each region
of the US
Our nation’s and our globe’s
scientists are telling us that climate change is real and it is happening now.
It is scary. It is, in fact, so scary that it is easier to look the other way
and to go about our lives. We don’t want to think about famine and drought and
flood and wildfires. We don’t want to experience them, see them on TV, think
about them, or consider their impact. We want to go about our lives.
But our lives as individuals
and as a society are dependent on all that is causing the problems. We need
fossil fuels to heat and cool our homes, to travel, to transport food and
clothing, to build plastics, and so much more. As a result, each of us
unwittingly becomes a player in causing the destruction of the planet.
At the end of the
instructions about census taking, our Torah portion continues:
When
a man or woman commits any wrong toward a fellow man, thus breaking faith with
the Lord, and that person realizes his guilt, he shall confess the wrong that
he has done. He shall make restitution in the principal amount and add one-fifth
to it, giving it to him whom he has wronged.
Are we, in the words of our
Torah portion, committing wrongs against one another each time we get into our
car or turn on the heat or air conditioning, putting more CO2 into the air? Are
we committing wrongs against one another when we eat foods grown with the use
of pesticides, some of which ran off into surrounding land and water? Are we
committing wrong each time we buy a product produced in a way that pollutes the
rivers or air of Bangladesh
or China
These are powerful words –
“commit wrong.” But the hard reality is that there is an invisible and lasting
negative impact of many of our personal actions, on other people as well as on
the rest of G!d’s creation.
And so, in the words of our Parashah,
we must, as individuals and as a society, confess our sins – in other words, to
acknowledge our actions – and make restitution, not through payments to each
other, but through deeds – to mitigate our impact and to move our society to
living differently, more harmoniously in tune with the rest of creation.
We want to go about our
lives, and we need to do that. But we also need to look our impact on the Earth
and each other squarely in the face, and say, we must do something.
Trying to make restitution –
to do something – alone can feel at times both lonely and futile – we are so
small in terms of the overwhelming nature of the problems. Doing something with
our family may feel somewhat more empowering and less alone. And doing
something with our community can feel even more empowering. That is why the
Jewish Climate Action Network came into being. Together with Eli Gerzon, now
working for Better Future Project/350MA, I helped this nascent organization
come into being. Those of us involved in JCAN are members of the Jewish community
who are passionate about the Earth and its inhabitants and the critical need
for action. We are diverse in our backgrounds and in the kinds of action we
believe are important, but we are united by our care and concern for the world
around us.
JCAN is focused on tikkun
tevel – healing of the Earth. Our objectives include promoting awareness
and understanding of environmental problems, in particular, climate change,
supporting political advocacy and action for better climate and environmental
policies, encouraging personal and communal change, and providing support to
those working to preserve the environment.
What we cannot do alone, we
can do together. And there are many things we can do, there are answers and
there are ways to build a more resilient and vibrant world.
But we need to do something
else, too – alone, with our families, and in our communities. We need to take
care of ourselves and be gentle on ourselves, to maintain our souls and to find
the strength and the courage to do the work we must do.
One of the ways that I began
to take care of myself some years ago was to pray outdoors. It is currently my
practice to step outside my back door every morning and every evening, and to
briefly daven beneath the sky.
I am not the first to think
of this. Rebbi Nachman of Bratslav prayed, “May it be my custom to go outdoors
each day, among the trees and grass, among all living things. And there may I
be alone, and enter into prayer, to talk with the One to whom I belong.”
And Bereshit 24:63 states, “Isaac
went out to meditate in the field toward evening,” and from this the rabbis
derived our daily mincha service. Our roots are in outdoor prayer, and we can
rediscover those roots. About seven years ago, I began regularly taking other
people outdoors to pray, too.
During these years of praying
outdoors, something has happened to me. I have always loved the out of-doors,
but I have noticed that my love for the Earth has significantly grown and
deepened. And as my relationship to the world around me has strengthened, so,
too, has the pain I feel when I see this love of mine being trampled and
transgressed, damaged and destroyed. My grief at the sight of a denuded
hillside or a new building where there was once a woodland is profound. My fear
for my grandchildren’s future is at times overwhelming.
I am reminded of a recent
experience in the hospital where I serve as a chaplain. I sat with an elderly
woman who was nearing the end of life, and I watched in awe the gentle and
loving care her daughter provided, despite her mother’s confusion and vastly
weakened state. I thought of words my brother said to me as our vibrant
relationships with our aging mother dissolved into something very different as
her brilliant mind began to slip away – “we are left with the love.”
We are left with the love.
And so, as we do for those we
love who are in trouble, I must speak, and I must act. And so I am here. I am
here to invite you to share with me your fears, your despair, your grief, and
to tell me about the actions you are taking to conserve resources or to act
communally or politically. I am here to invite you to join JCAN and other
members of the Jewish community as we explore ways to act together. I am here
to let you know that JCAN and its members would like to be a resource for your
community in whatever way might be helpful. And I am also here to invite you to
step outside and pray, and to allow that action to change you. I invite you to
do this on your own, outside your own door, and I also invite you to join
others from the Jewish community at this year’s third Metrowest Shabbat Retreat
in Nature, a weekend of outdoor tefillah, and eating and sleeping, being and
doing Jewish, and renewing our connection and commitment to the natural world.
I invite you to enroll your children in the Interfaith nature camp I organized
at Open Spirit in Framingham, a time for kids to explore the natural world in
playful and respectful ways. I invite you to find your own new ways of
connecting your spiritual and religious life with the world outside your door,
winter, spring, summer, and fall.
I leave you today with two
quotes from Jewish tradition. The first, from Kohelet Rabbah (on Eccl. 7:13):
In
the time that the Holy One created the first human, he took him to all the
trees of Gan Eden and said to him, ‘See my works, how lovely and praiseworthy
they are, and all that I created, for your sake I created it. Put your mind [to this], that you don’t ruin
or destroy my world, for if you ruin it there is no one who will repair after you.”
And from the Haskalah poet Saul
Tchernikovsky:
And
if you ask me of G!d, my G!d.
'Where
is G!d that in joy we may worship?'
Here
on Earth too G!d lives, not in Heaven alone.
A
striking fir, a rich furrow, in them you will find G!d's likeness.
Divine
image incarnate in every high mountain.
Wherever
the breath of life flows, you will find G!d embodied.
And
G!d's household?
All
being: the gazelle, the turtle, the shrub, the cloud pregnant with thunder.
G!d
in creation is G!d's eternal name.
And lastly, if you suddenly
find 275 times more dandelions in your yard, don’t worry – if your yard is
chemical free, you can eat those yellow flowers, and they make absolutely
delicious fritters!
Todah rabbah and Shabbat
shalom.
