Earth Etude for Elul 10: Re-remembering Who We Are

by Rabbi David Jaffee

Born at home on a Shabbat morning, my son spent his first few hours on this planet snuggling against his mother’s warm chest.  One of the most striking visual images of that first day was the moment our midwife cut the umbilical cord that physically connected mother and child. Until that moment I knew abstractly that we were all connected and even, at rare times of spiritual reverie, sensed this connection.  But here I saw it – as humans we were at one point actually physically connected to another human being, our life interdependent with their life! The loss of this raw, visceral sense of interconnection with all creation may be the key psychic contributor to our human penchant for environmental destruction. 

Mussar master Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe writes in his Essays on Elul (Elul 1958: “Forces of Amity”)

“The entire creation is unified and clings together, for “We all have one ancestor,” and all creation draws close to one another, one great family.
 We humans are close to the inanimate world, for it is written, “We are dust.”
 We are close to plant life for we also have the life force in us.
 Our closeness to animals is even more pronounced.
 We don’t even need to say how much closeness there is between different nations and races….”

For Rav Wolbe connection comes from shared properties. We are made of minerals and water so we are intrinsically connected to the physical universe, we grow so we are connected to all that grows.  Why then would we act in such destructive ways towards the planet, animals and other humans?  Rav Wolbe points out that the root of the Hebrew word for cruel (akhzar) means estrangement.  Only when we make other people or the earth as a strangers can we be cruel.  This estrangement comes from our confusion about who we really are what we are doing on this planet.  Elul is the season for correcting this mistaken sense of distance and alienation.  It is the time to literally re-member who we are and how we started.  Just like my son with his umbilical cord intact, we are deeply connected in a real way with the people around us, with the earth under us, the sky above us, and the divine soul within us.  May knowing this end our destruction of this planet and all its inhabitants.

Rabbi David Jaffe is the founder of the Kirva Institute and author of Changing the World from the Inside Out: A Jewish Approach to Personal and Social Change (Trumpeter: 2016). He lives with his family in Sharon, MA.

 

Earth Etude for Elul 9: The Important Ten Percent

by Rabbi Judy Weiss

Rabbi Dr. Judith Hauptman, professor of Talmud at the Jewish Theological Seminary, taught a passage from the Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 54b-55a, in a study session for the Israeli Knesset in 2014 (listen to her re-teach it at Mechon Hadar, here). In this passage, the rabbis conclude that we're responsible for protesting when we observe someone doing something that is morally wrong. We must protest even if we think the offenders won't heed our warnings, and even if we fear being stigmatized for speaking out. 

The talmudic passage teaches that if we fail to protest a wrong-doing that we observed, our name becomes attached to the deed because we are just as culpable as the wrong-doer. Hauptman concluded the lesson by emphasizing that to be a good Jew, it isn't enough to keep Jewish rituals and laws--one must also identify ways to fix the world and then protest until wrongs are righted. Speaking out extends beyond moaning and crying around one's dinner table. One must protest in one's neighborhood, city, to the head of state and everyone of his/her aides, and throughout the whole world.  

Peter Gleick, an environmental scientist specializing in energy, water and climate change, made a similar point in 2010. He suggested that climate change disasters be named after climate change deniers. His logic was that deniers are stalling action to cut emissions, so our society hasn't addressed climate change adequately, and the probability of extreme weather events has increased. By naming climate disasters after deniers, we blame those responsible for increasing the odds of these catastrophes.

Yet the sad fact is that it's our fault, and our names should be on the disasters. If we had protested that Congress was listening to fake scientists instead of heeding the warnings of real climate scientists, then Congress would have enacted legislation long ago. If we had protested and thus created a support system for our nation's climate scientists, so they would not have had to endure abuse at the hands of misleading, badgering, disrespectful, and wrong (yes, sinful) Senators and Representatives, our use of energy and resources would have been fixed, modernized and de-carbonized years ago. We could have started working to cut emissions more effectively back in 1988. 

The Yom Kippur Al Het prayer, written in the plural, reminds us that we are responsible for forming an ethical and just society (see the morning Isaiah haftarah). Summarizing from the Silverman Mahzor, the prayer says we sinned by compulsion or by our own will, we sinned unknowingly or knowingly, with speech or hardened hearts, by wronging neighbors, by association with impurity, by denying, scoffing and by breach of trust. 

What greater breach of trust could we do to present and future generations than by pushing the climate past tipping points? We sin when: we pretend we have no choice, the problem is too big, we're afraid to speak about it, with stiff-necks and confused minds we allow impure air and water to continue to hurt people . . . we still deny, delay, dis, digress. . .   and break faith as a community.

Social scientists have found that when "just 10 percent of the population holds an unshakable belief, their belief will always be adopted by the majority of the society." For change to happen, 10% of the population must be "committed opinion-holders.” So speak about climate change. Go on marches. Write to newspapers. Protest in your Senators' and Representatives' offices. 

Ten percent doesn't sound like so much. But if you aren't vocal and committed, then we won’t reach the 10% tipping point and Congress won’t act. Imagine if one day your grandchild asks: What did you do after the deadly 2016 West Virginia floods, Ellicott City flood, and August's Macedonia flood to prevent more climate catastrophes? Will your name become “mud."

We are all in this together. But together, we can get out of it.

The time to protest is now.

Rabbi Judy Weiss lives in Brookline, Massachusetts and is a volunteer climate change advocate with Citizens’ Climate Lobby, Boston Jewish Climate Action Network, and Elders Climate Action’s Boston chapter.  

Earth Etude for Elul 8: Like a River Flows

by Janna Diamond

“I would like to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.” - John O’Donohue

 

 

What happens when we begin to awaken to what is in front of us, around us, and meeting us? Whose truth are we waking up to? Is it the “reality” of the heat being turned up--literally, like the past summer with the highest temperatures on record--and also the speed at which crises are converging? Or is it actually a mirror for our ability to see, feel, and hear our own truth-telling?

I’ve witnessed many conscious, politically engaged people recently confess to idealizing the way things were before they knew a particular fact or processed a piece of information that caused a shift in awareness. What went unnamed in these conversation was the acknowledgement that we cannot go back. That the tighter we hold on to the way things were or even currently are, the more pain we’ll endure. The tightening doesn’t allow for flow or unfolding. Or joy.

This isn’t about running to save the earth by returning her and all living beings to nostalgic yesteryear--it’s about us slowly peeling back our armor, especially those deep tough layers, to become awake in a sleeping world. And as the awakening occurs, not bypassing our own brokenness for what’s outside us. It is one and the same.

What pain have we been avoiding? What grief cries out in a faint voice aching for our attention? Calling in our gifts and doing the work of our time requires that we face ourselves.

Separation and othering creates an illusion that we are alone in this pain.  Alternatively, it is our collective awakening that brings us closer to one another and to truth. Whose truth? Our own and all of ours together. Freefalling into the unknown brings us to community. It enlivens our creativity. It invites us to support and hold each other exactly where we are. It is all we have and it is everything.  

Janna Diamond is a movement builder and activist focused on embodied healing for social change.  Janna works at HIAS, the Jewish organization for refugees.  

Earth Etude for Elul 7: The Power of Limit-Making

by Maggid David Arfa

“Self-respect is the root of discipline: The sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.” R. AJ Heschel

A riddle:  Lily pads are doubling on a pond every day, Day 1- 1, Day 2- 2, Day 3- 4, Day 4- 8 and so on.  On day 30, the pond if filled.  On what day is the pond half filled?  

Answer: The 29th day.  And the 28th day the pond is only a quarter filled.  The 27th day? The 26th day?*

___________________________________________________

I am writing one week after the destruction that is Tisha B’av. It is now the time of consolation. And yet, Moshe Rabbeinu, Moses our great teacher, is begging to cross over into the good land.  He is old, but still of strong mind and strong eye. This man who has done so much -- growing up as Egyptian royalty, grappling with the injustice of society, choosing to act by confronting Pharaoh and leading an enslaved people into freedom- is a man not used to taking no for an answer. He is pleading to join his people as they cross over, and the response is not consolation, instead it is harsh rebuke- “Enough!”**  And yet, I can’t help but look deeper, to find consoling insights to bring into our Elul reflections.

A kabbalistic understanding teaches that if Moshe crossed over, he would have unified time and brought the Messianic era -- he would have ended hatred, greed and war for all time.***  There would be no injustice left in the world.  Perhaps the Holy One is insuring that future generations get to help out too!  My mind connects back to another ‘Enough!’ when the Holy One shouted to the expanding World at the very beginning of time- ‘Enough!;!^   Both in their own way, show that, dayenu, limits to growth are woven into the very fabric of our world.  If the primordial world continued to expand and expand; if this cosmic fast forwarding was allowed, all would be over before beginning.  In fact, the name of Gd that is Shaddai is ‘the One Who Says Enough!’^^ The One who had to limit the primordial expansion of the world also limited the ultimate expansion of Moshe’s righteous work.  Could this cosmic power be relevant for our affluence that is consuming and drowning the world?

Thanks to corporations built on historic conquest, slavery, massive waste and pollution, we have expanded to the point where we can carry all the musicians of the world in our pocket; we can place all the foods of the world on our table; we can search through all the hard-won intellectual treasures of the world at our fingertips, we can play and watch all the games, movies, comedians and news of the world on demand.  We can have desserts, with creamy filling, every night of the week!  I still remember my unbounded delight when I learned that my childhood allowance could buy me individually wrapped cheesy burgers, yellow cakes filled with cream and blueberry pie pockets drizzled with glaze. To know no bounds seemed equated with freedom.  

And yet, we all know our planet is in dire need of limits.  Our planet is being seriously impacted by our collective means of energy production, food systems, transportation choices and buying habits.  The Earth can not withstand continued consumer growth.  We need to recognize limits.

Amazingly, the Rabbi’s, at their mythopoetic finest, remind us that we are co-creators, partners with the Holy One in setting limits.  We are not just passive receivers, but also hold the power of ‘Enough!’.  The Rabbis teach us that each week, when we lift the goblet of grape, and we invoke those words from Torah that finish the world of creating, we are wielding the power that limits the expanding world.  At that moment we become partners with the Holy One when we say “Vayechulu, and they were finished” (Heaven and Earth were finished).  The Midrashists creatively shift a few vowels, raising our participation by turning Vayechulu into Vayechalu;‘They finished’ (Creator and Human finished together).^^^

All of us who have tried a diet or negotiated with children the limits of screen time, know how hard and important it is to set and maintain limits. Let alone trying to finish the work of the week or the most impossible of challenges that Moshe faced, trying to finish the work of a life!  Our work to tame consumerism in our life and society is nourished by this wisdom.  

Through this gate of limits, we can claim the power of voluntary simplicity, of consciously reversing the trends of non-stop industrial growth.  Inspired by the power of our own voices saying ‘Enough!’, we can look into our lives, we can talk with our families, our synagogues and our communities and find new ways to simplify and reduce impact. In this way, the work of limiting is not the work of self deprivation, instead it is the work of growing in dignity.

This Elul, how will your powers of limit making deepen?

*The Limits to Growth by Meadows, Meadows, Randers and Behrens, 1972;  **Deut 3:26 *** Meor V’Shemesh, translated and edited with commentary  by Aryeh Wineman, 2015; ^Hagigah 12a.  ^^Hagigah 12a.  ^^^Shabbat 119a.  

David Arfa, Maggid (Mah-geed/Storyteller) is dedicated to Judaism's storytelling heritage and ancient environmental wisdom.  David leads monthly outdoor Shabbat-inspired services at the High Ledges in Shelburne MA and facilitates public Mikvah (with bathing suits) in the Deerfield River each week before Shabbat.  He has produced two award winning CD's, 'the Birth of Love: Tales for the Days of Awe' and 'The Life and Times of Herschel of Ostropol: The Greatest Prankster Who Ever Lived'.  His full length storytelling performance, 'The Jar of Tears: A Memorial for the Warsaw Ghetto Rebbe' won the Cohen Center Hildebrandt award for its "artistic quality, technical mastery and depth of vision." 

David is currently the Director of Education for Congregation Beth Israel in North Adams and enjoying bringing experiential, art-based programming into Jewish education.  David is also enrolled in Clinical Pastoral Education specializing in the role of story in meaning-making with elders.  David lives in the Berkshire foothills of Shelburne Falls. His storytelling and environmental offerings can be found on his website at www.maggiddavid.net.  

Earth Etude for Elul 6: I Dare You

by Rabbi Margaret Frisch Klein

“I dare you to do it!” 

So I was challenged by Yosef Abramowitz. Yosef and his wife, Rabbi Susan Silverman made aliyah to Israel 10 years ago. Last year he ran for president of Israel and he has a company selling solar panels.

He challenged every American rabbi, any American rabbi to talk about Passover and the environment. It was, after all Earth Day. I accepted the dare. For me, it was easy. My father was one of the first “ecologists”. I was at the first Earth Day celebration. What could be more natural than talking about our responsibility to G-d’s glorious creation? We are commanded to bal taschit, to not destroy, and to be partners with G-d as caretakers of this earth.

I spoke about the prayer for dew, “Tal” which we begin to recite on Passover. As I began my sermon, a hand went up. “Rabbi, I object.” Sermons at my synagogue are more discussion than formal discourse but this was early for discussion. Maybe this wasn’t going to be so easy after all. He explained that Tal is a very old prayer written by a nomadic people and that we should not be obligated any more to take care of the earth.

Interesting argument. I might have concluded the exact opposite. In fact, I had a visual of the earth “breathing” that NASA had taken from space that shows the expanding and shrinking polar ice cap by the seasons. When we talk about Kol Haneshamah, every soul, every living breath praises G-d, even the earth. We echo that with Nishmat Kol Chai…Here was the proof that the earth breathes! It was thrilling.

I planned to talk about water and light. About my vision of having a rain barrel to help water our community garden. About the seeds I was giving each family as part of the seder later that evening. For me, it all fits with “Do not destroy.”

And I wanted to talk about our ner tamid, our eternal light. We have been given a grant to buy a new light for our chapel. It is my vision of making that a solar ner tamid. Since the sun should be an eternal light, we hope. Since, I had worked with Rabbi Everett Gendler who in the 1970s dedicated the first solar Ner Tamid in the country at Temple Emanuel of the Merrimack Valley. Since Yosef’s mother is a member there and I met my husband there. And since Yosef Abramowitz’s main focus is solar power. And since, lifting up the light for all time is part of our spiritual obligation. We are as this week’s Torah portion says an am kadosh, a holy people, a light to the nations. How we use our resources, how we light that light, lifting it up, elevates all of us.

That rain barrel will be installed on Sukkot. That new ner tamid will be going in before Rosh Hashanah and dedicated on Chanukah. They are a powerful symbol of light and hope, of our responsibility to the universe. I double dare other congregations to follow.

Rabbi Margaret Frisch Klein is the rabbi of Congregation Kneseth Israel in Elgin, IL. She received her rabbinic ordination from the Academy for Jewish Religion. Margaret blogs at www.theenergizerrabbi.org.

Earth Etude for Elul 5: Changing Ourselves

by Thea Iberall, Ph.D.

Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) said, “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” I think about this statement every time I do climate change activism. We must wean humanity off of fossil fuels before the seas rise too high and before droughts have not just millions of people on the move as they are now, but billions searching for food, water and stable governments. What am I personally doing to change myself to help alleviate the problem? I drive a hybrid car and try to use less and less electricity. How much of a difference will it make? Multiple my actions by a few billion people and it could make a difference.

In 1908, Tolstoy wrote A Letter to a Hindu where he argued that it would be through love that the Indian people could become free from British rule. Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948) read this letter and was greatly influenced to adopt a nonviolent peaceful resistance for the Indian Independence movement. A few years after being exposed to these ideas, Gandhi published a list of seven social sins, the results of a correspondence with a friend. He commented on the list, “Naturally, the friend does not want the readers to know these things merely through the intellect but to know them through the heart so as to avoid them.” The sins include things like wealth without work, commerce without morality, worship without sacrifice.

Business institutions serving their own interest instead of serving others are practicing commerce without morality. Religious ones doing the same are worshiping without sacrifice. I ask myself what is worship with sacrifice? Is it enough to go to our religious institutions on Fridays, Saturdays, or Sundays, pray and then return home? Is it the karbonot of early Judaism, to make animal sacrifices in the Temple? These were made to draw nearer to G-d, to express gratitude, or to atone for a sin. Today, we don’t make animal sacrifices and draw nearer to G-d in other ways.

The Talmud says, “Deeds of loving kindness are superior to charity.”  Chesed, or loving kindness, is a virtue that contributes to tikkun olam or repairing the world. In Judaism, our chesed actions include sustaining children, the sick, strangers, mourners, and communities.

But when we worship, we aren’t required to do these things. No one stops me at the synagogue door and asks me to list my sacrifices.

What selfless acts am I doing for humanity and other living things? If I am to claim I am a spiritual person, my teshuvah must be to worship with sacrifice by knowing what to do through my heart. More than give money to charity, more than helping the sick, more than being friendly to strangers, I must change myself, and in doing so, I change the world.

What are you willing to do?

Thea Iberall is a poet, storyteller, teacher, climate activist and the author of The Swallow and the Nightingale- a fable about a 4,000-year-old secret brought through time by the birds. 

Earth Etude for Elul 4: The Power of Silence, the Power of Creation

by Rabbi Katy Z. Allen

When we don’t know what to do, it can be difficult to sit still. When we are deep in grief or despair, it can be painful to stop moving. When we are angry or hurt, allowing silence into our lives can feel almost impossible.

Silence in all these situations can feel like an unwanted stranger. But silence is a good friend. And our own silence when we are out in nature, is even a better friend.

Those of us who have a bit of undisturbed land near us, and who can safely walk in these places, are truly privileged and blessed. 

A moment of silence in nature can bring healing to a deep wound.

A moment of listening in an open meadow can bring new understanding.

A moment of quietly watching at the edge of a river can give new strength.

A moment of simply being surrounded the more-than-human world can give us a sudden new sense of connection to the Source of All.

The world is a painful place. “News” is generally not good and often is frightening or disturbing.

Lift up your eyes on high, and comprehend Who created this all,…Who calls each one by name… Do you know? Have you heard? The eternal God, the Mystery, the Creator to the ends of the Universe, never ceases, never grows weary, with unsearchable understanding. (Is. 40:25-28)

Searching out what is unsearchable. Reaching what is unreachable, touching what is untouchable. These are what silence, surrounded by the gifts of Creation, can give us.

Rabbi Katy Allen is a board certified chaplain and serves as an Eco-Chaplain and the Facilitator of One Earth Collaborative, a program of Open Spirit. She is the founder and rabbi of Ma'yan Tikvah - A Wellspring of Hope, which holds services outdoors all year long. She is the co-founder and President pro-tem of the Boston-based Jewish Climate Action Network, and a hospice chaplain at CareGroup Parmenter Hospice. She received her ordination from the Academy for Jewish Religion in Yonkers, NY. 

Earth Etude for Eul 3: G-d's Might, Detroit, and Coming Back to Life

by Moshe Givental

G-d’s Might, Detroit, and Coming Back to Life

Every year on Tisha b’Av we begin a 7-week journey of preparation for Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur. Like most significant experiences in life, for the Jewish Holy Days to have the potential for transformation, they require preparation. So we started a few weeks ago by looking at the broken-ness of our physical, ethical, and spiritual worlds signified by Tisha b’Av, moved towards the hope of a world filled with love 6-days later at Tu b’Av, and are now in the midst of a month of working on Heshbon HaNefesh (our soul accounting), reflecting on our past year, righting the wrongs we can, softening our hearts enough to apologize where needed, setting new goals, and beginning again the work of rebuilding relationships with family, friends, G-d, and our selves.

This year my journey of reflection and rebuilding started in Detroit, a city ravaged by decades via an exodus of jobs from the city after WWII, then white flight and abandoned property, then riots, crime and outrage, then political mismanagement and neglect, and most recently the recession of 2008, followed by Emergency Management’s systematic undermining and deconstruction of many basic vital services such as education, city pensions, and access to water for the city’s poor residents. It’s devastating to hear and watch. However, amidst all of that, what was even more powerful is the way that the Detroit’s residents are sowing seeds of hope and life. Street Art such as the Heidelberg Project are giving residents a way to express their grief and dreams, while beautifying their neighborhoods. Residents surrounded by the blight of empty lots and decrepit buildings, are getting their hands dirty and learning how to grow food. Places like The Georgia Street Community Center are putting Detroit at the top of urban agriculture in the U.S., a part of the city’s approximately 1,300 urban gardens and farms, while building community, the local economy, and resilience in the process.

Detroit is literally coming back to life, from the inside out, while its old top-down and government controlled structures are still crumbling. Reflecting on this transformation, I think of our prayers for renewal and growth each day and on the High Holidays! It brings me to the Amidah’s second prayer, referred to as Gevurot / God’s Might. While some Reform and Reconstructionist prayer books interpret resurrection literally and balk, our tradition long ago recognized the Mekhayeh Metim – the coming back to life – is also metaphor for something we all experience as we grow, stumble, fall, and try again. Our prayer repeats the phrase “Mekhayeh Metim” three times. Therefore, the sages ask, what are the three different ways in which we fall into despair, into darkness and destruction, and might be able to come back to life? Instead of giving you their answers, I challenge us all to meditate on this question as we continue prepare for Rosh HaShanah. The residents of Detroit are clearly organizing, rebuilding, and bringing their city back to life! The questions for all of us are: What do we see in our life that is falling apart? What’s decomposing? What kinds of seeds do we need the creativity and courage to plant in order to come back to life?

Moshe Givental is a former psychotherapist, currently an activist and in his last year of Rabbinic school at Hebrew College. 

Earth Etude for Elul 2: Oh Deer, What Can the Matter Be?

by Rabbi Robin Damsky

I am sitting with the concept of brokenness as it relates to Tisha B’Av and the ensuing unfolding of the High Holy Day season. We often have trouble connecting with this day; our lives are so distant from the First and Second Temple periods, but its central theme is one with which we can all relate: brokenness. In this day of weeping, we weep not only for the brokenness and destruction in the past, we weep for our own brokenness today, and this brings me back to the garden.

Growing food most closely informs my relationship with the earth so that is where I go to source these writings. Each year there are crops that grow well and others that disappoint. One crop, however, enthused and simultaneously disappointed beyond all: the grapes.

Pruning grapes is critical for a good crop. This year I discovered that April is the right time to prune, but still convinced I had no idea what I was doing, I feared that I was ruining my harvest. Lo and behold, 6 weeks later, a friend visiting from out of town who grows grapes, said, “Look! You have grape bunches everywhere!”

There were hundreds. Literally. I had never had that many grapes before. I was going to have a bumper crop. Enough to have a grape harvest party and to bring delectable fruit to the food pantry in very good quantity.

As time unfolded, we discovered some black rot due to too much rain. We pruned excessively, removing a number of the clusters for the good of the balance. We fertilized with comfrey compost tea, a very smelly and extraordinarily effective plant food. The bunches exploded. Not yet ready to harvest but looking very appealing to the eye, we tied up flash tape to distract birds and squirrels. Harvest time was approaching, but not just yet. The fruits were too sour. We hung plastic owls and falcons for more protection.

These deterrents work well for small animals, but there was one I hadn’t anticipated. It looked like the time had come to pick. We set to pick the next day, but that night I had a set of visitors. Two, or three, or maybe five. I knew it was more than one from the gifts they left me of their droppings. They were deer, who, in having their own territory encroached upon, in having their food sources diminished, and with an imbalance in natural predators, trek farther and farther away from the wild to find food. My fencing has always kept the deer out in the past. But not this time.

They didn’t eat some of the grapes or a modicum of the grapes. They totaled a solid 80% of them. I walked out and the bursting bunches of red, black and green were nowhere to be seen. Or there was one grape hanging left, sometimes 2 to 5.

I was so torn. It’s not that I don’t want to feed the deer. Or the squirrels or the birds. I expect to lose a bit of my produce to them each year. But to have had uninvited guests simply take almost the whole of a crop was just too much. All the hours of cultivating. All the time devoted to pruning, to fertilizing, to trellising, to protecting. All, essentially, gone.

The deer also ate almost all of my pole beans, took off the tops of the beets and a whole bunch of other great stuff. So this weekend was devoted to putting up an eight-foot deer fence, which may or may not keep them out.

How do we take this forward into our preparation for the High Holy Days, and our love for the earth?

I have always felt that the earth nourishes me. One of the reasons I grow food is to give back to the Creator that “gives to each its food in due time,” (Psalm 145; Ashrei). I also grow food out of a sense of responsibility to educate others: how to grow their own food for their health and for the better health of our planet, to show folks how good fresh-picked, organically grown food tastes, and to help feed the hungry. Sure, I suppose I have to include the deer in there – I still haven’t worked out exactly how to address that.

But I think the most poignant point is the sense of brokenness. Not just the brokenness that I felt in finding my grapes decimated, but also the brokenness of our ecological balance that puts us in the position of vying with our wildlife. I wrote earlier this season that I learned from Henry David Thoreau in his book, Walden, that we have to plant an extra row of beans for the deer. This goes way beyond an extra row. It is as if a whole farm needs to be planted for them and their creature buddies.

Where is your personal brokenness? Where do you most closely observe brokenness in our planet’s balance?

In order to find the healing and regeneration of the High Holy Day season, we must first acknowledge the truth of where we are. As we prepare for the onset of Elul and the awakening of its shofar blasts, let us ask ourselves where we feel broken, and where our relationship with the earth is broken as well. As we look inside and spend time with the earth around us, we might find a breath – the breath of acknowledgment, of thanks for taking the time to touch the wounded places within us and without. As we sit with our tenderness, we can ask for guidance from the Source of Life for how to heal – how to heal internally and how to help heal our planet. Our lives hang in the balance, and the deer and their friends are counting on us.

Rabbi Robin Damsky is the founder and executive director of In the Gardens, a new nonprofit bringing edible organic garden design as well as mindfulness practice to food deserts, food insecure communities, businesses and homes. She also serves as the rabbi of the Ames Jewish Congregation in Iowa. She is a 2015 graduate of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality’s Clergy Leadership Program and is currently studying in their Jewish Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training program. Rabbi Damsky was ordained by the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies and earned her Masters degree in Jewish education at the Jewish Theological Seminary. She has a BFA in dance from Ohio University and has been a medical massage therapist since 1977.  Website: http://inthegardens.org/

Earth Etude for Elul 1: Saving the Earth to Save Our Children

by Andy Oram

The traditional Torah readings on Rosh HaShanah cover two of Abraham’s most difficult trials, calling on him to relinquish his two sons. The troublesome stories can tell us a lot about how to make room in our lives for our children--and also a lot about how to save the Earth from the devastation of climate change and ecological destruction.

In the first story, read traditionally on the first day of the holiday, Sarah abruptly demands that Ishmael be thrown out with his mother into the desert, and God backs her up. Abraham reluctantly goes along. God’s approval suggests that Sarah had an understanding not visible on the surface. Abraham is prosperous and can easily support two sons. But for some reason, keeping them in the same tent would not be a long-term solution.

The mythic aspect of this apparently cruel abandonment is revealed through in details. Hagar, Ishmael’s mother, carries him like a small child even though we know from previous passages that he is a teenager. The literal expulsion into the desert probably did not actually happen. What we do know is that Ishmael survived, because Abraham provisioned him for his journey and because he discovers (despite Hagar’s despair) that the desert can sustain him. Ishmael becomes a great nation, returns to honor Abraham at his burial, and even furnishes a wife for one of Abraham’s grandchildren.

The progression from the banishment of Ishmael to the binding of Isaac illustrates some sort of evolution in the world around them. Perhaps overpopulation had complicated the process of going out to make one’s fortune. Canny readers have questions about exactly what God told Abraham to do when it was time to send out Isaac into the world, but it seems that Abraham interpreted the mandate in some horribly distorted way.

My own guess is that God asked Abraham to set up Isaac so he could support himself, and that Abraham did so in a way that could destroy the environment. The modern equivalent is to set up belching factory furnaces that darken the sky with carbon emissions, or to sweep down whole forests in order to plant commercial crops. These are the activities that destroy the Earth and our children’s future with it. Abraham was doing something, even if done out of love and concern, that would rob Isaac of life.

God realizes Abraham’s mistake, in which God may also share some of the blame. So God gives Abraham a lesson, showing him an alternative way to meet the goal. The ram found by Abraham was on its way to death, caught in a thicket it could not escape. Instead of acting destructively, Abraham carried out what we nowadays would call recycling. He turned the doomed ram into a blessing before God, and Isaac was saved.

Thus, our High Holiday readings warn us to think of the consequences of acts we take on behalf of our children. Events often do not turn out as one would think. Like Abraham, we need divine guidance to come out right in the end.

Andy Oram is a writer and editor at O'Reilly Media, a technology publisher and conference provider. He is currently interim secretary of the Jewish Climate Action Network and participates often in their activities in the Boston area. Some of his other writings can be found at http://praxagora.com/andyo/fiction and http://praxagora.com/andyo/personal/gloss.html.