Earth Etude for Elul 8 - A Year of Travel, a Year of Wonder

by Susie Davidson

Over the past year, I've had many unforgettable experiences in different countries and regions, within amazing, varied landscapes. There is nothing like discovering and living in a new environment. The languages, cultures, geography, and people are so different. However, it is within these strange surroundings that I have conversely noticed what is similar. There are common themes of humanity. There is kindness and graciousness. There is joie de vivre.

And there is G-d's physical world. In Europe, I have noticed that natural areas are lovingly maintained and preserved. Like the great works of art so treasured abroad, parks, fields, gardens, mountains, rivers and waterways are equally revered. The Danube, the Alps, the Mediterranean hold the same importance as each country's museums and cultural centers.

Perhaps it is the majestic places of worship rising over public squares that remind visitors and residents of the gifts they have been given. Perhaps it is the relatively smaller amount of land in each country. But you will always see completely clean streets and well-tended green spaces. 

I returned to Boston with the wish that this environmental devotion could be the case here.

Last August, I flew to Brussels a few days before the start of "W-Fest," a 4-day new wave and electropop 1980s music festival. I arrived early so that I could travel to the Port of Rotterdam, from which my great-grandmother and her four children escaped the firing squads and devastating pogroms in their Russian shtetl. They walked all the way there, and ultimately arrived in Boston, where my great-grandfather had established a grocery business.

Along the way, I saw beautiful fields and quaint towns. As I said Kaddish for my ancestors and placed rocks along the pier in the beautifully , a white swan appeared under me in the waters.

In November, I flew to West Palm Beach to attend a Holocaust convention. As always, I was struck by the beauty of the harbor and coastline, all the way down to Miami. The water is sparkling, the sunsets exquisite. Tropical trees like the incredible banyan abound, and Florida has many nature preserves with paths lined with lizards, and I saw palmetto and palm trees.

My boyfriend and I visited Florida twice more over the winter. We stayed in Ft. Lauderdale and in Hollywood while exploring Miami, Key West (talk about sunsets!), and Sanibel Island.

Banyan tree, Miami, FL

In January of this year, I took a two-week Amtrak trip around the U.S In Chicago, I walked through Lincoln Park and along the shore of Lake Michigan. Outside of New Orleans, I observed abject poverty in the stark, humble Mississippi gulf plains communities.

I admired Lake Pontchartrain as we approached New Orleans, and after a stay there, beheld the swampy, Louisiana bayou from the train's observation lounge. The prairies, with cacti and tumbleweeds galore, and the distant mountains of Mexico then became my vista.

Louisiana bayou, from Amtrak

In El Paso I was awestruck by the adjacent hills of Juarez. Walking along the separation fence, crossing the border, mingling with Mexican residents, and visiting the El Paso Holocaust Museum was a provocative, and somehow, life-affirming personal journey.

Hills of Mexico, Del Rio, Texas

Author at El Paso border crossing.

In March, we attended the famed SXSW music, film and art confluence in hip and friendly Austin. In Dallas, we somberly toured Dealey Plaza and the adjacent Holocaust Museum.

This May, while attending a rock festival near Dusseldorf, I experienced the beauty of Paris, the remnants of the industrial past of Oberhausen, the timelessness of Antwerp. I compared the Rhine waterfronts of Dusseldorf and then Cologne, where the city is rebuilding and reconstructing its ancient Jewish quarter. One month before the 75th anniversary of D-Day, I toured the Normandy beaches and Allied landing sites. I then spent two days in Keflavik and Reykjavik, the breathtaking land of glaciers, waterfalls, lagoons, volcanoes -- and Icelandic chocolate and smoked salmon.

I also traveled to Montreal and Toronto twice, in September and again this May. And next week, it is back to Brussels for W-Fest 2019, and a long layover in Copenhagen.

Maine foliage, from bus to Canada

Travel is an opportunity for excitement, discovery and wonder, and for making universal connections to nature and humanity. By seeing our beautiful world and interacting with its inhabitants, we appreciate the gifts of Creation, and reaffirm the need to preserve them.

Susie Davidson, a Boston-based journalist, has contributed to HuffPost, the Houston Chronicle, the Jewish Daily Forward, JewishBoston.com, Shalom Magazine, WickedLocal.com and other national and international media. She authored a 2005 book and documentary film, "I Refused to Die," about local Holocaust survivors and liberating WWII soldiers.

Earth Etude for Elul 7 - To Everything There is A Season

by Maxine Lyons

Growth takes many forms and like other Jewish seekers, I rely on the life-cycle events to provide a framework for growth, celebrating nature and new life, knowing that to everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven. I started this year’s Elul preparation in June, with conscious gratitude for the experience of becoming a grandmother for the first time in my 70’s and ready to welcome a second grandbaby due to arrive before Rosh Hashanah.

Through my work as a professional educator with older adults for several decades, I have cultivated a positive approach to growing older and now more than ever, I am responding to the passage of time with excitement. This season offers me a clear purpose and a time to review my life.

As a new year approaches, being with my precious grandson and looking into his eyes helps me reflect with wonder, curiosity and hope as I imagine what my grandchildren will become and how they will grow and express themselves. The uplifting side of having grandchildren later in life is feeling deeper gratitude for life; likewise, I feel the sadness of knowing that there will be many life-cycle events that I will not be there to participate in over the coming years.

In the spirit of Elul, a time of renewal and meaningful “turning,” I am committed to grow and change along with these two new babies. For years I have used my gardens as a measure of growth, learning about change and renewal from the forgiving nature of my gardens which have lived through the harshness of winter to become emerging sprouts in the spring and then flowering with colorful life in summertime. I have also measured my personal growth by my own subjective standards, asking myself, am I growing into a more empathic and caring person? Does my growth enhance the lives of my dear ones and many others?

The growth of a totally dependent child creates generational continuity with his parents and grandparents; this intergenerational connection strengthens my relationships among all my loved ones. I believe that as our children become parents and grow their own families, they are carrying on the ancestral heritage of their past as well as forging a new and vibrant future. 

These reflections deepen my practice of seeing and naming blessings that honors the continuity of life, change and growth. Interdependence of close family ties parallels the interdependence of gardens that require enriched soil and responsible caretaking by us gardeners to ensure that our flowers, shrubs and vegetables flourish.

Our children were once saplings and have become more securely planted, branching out with their own rituals and practices that are meaningful to them. They were nourished with love and aspirations. They are the seeds that are now producing their own saplings. My fervent hope is that they will offer their sheltering arms, ripeness, and growth for future generations to come. May we, the parents and grandparents support their growth with clear values, well-intentioned activism, and limitless tikvah.

Rosh Hashanah represents the beauty of renewal (hadesh yamenu k’kedem), returning us again and again to the opportunity to renew spiritual values. My hope is that we will experience true growth of our personhood and offer our lives as worthy legacies to pass on to our children and grandchildren.

Maxine Lyons, retired for several years as an educator, has been enjoying studying both Mussar and other Jewish teachings as well as Buddhism in a “garden sangha" in Newton following the practice of Thich Nhat Hanh. She is also actively involved with interfaith spirituality through Cooperative Metropolitan Ministries. Her new life’s role presently is learning to be a grandma to Judah as she awaits the birth of her second grandchild in CA. 

Earth Etude for Elul 6 - God I Am Your Sapling

by Nakhie Faynshteyn

God I am your sapling

Let me take in your sunlight
so that I may nourish my leaves
And grow vibrant and green

Let me take in your rains
and let them soak into my roots beneath the ground

I will be nimble and bend
My branches will stretch and sprout buds
While my roots hold me firm and planted

God I am your sapling

Nakhie Faynshteyn is a first generation immigrant from Odessa, Ukraine who lives in the Fenway area in Boston. He is as climate and social justice activist working with the Sunrise Movement, Kavod and Boston Workmen’s Circle cultivating discussion and action around topics of classism and environmental justice. Through a collaboration between Kavod and Workmen’s Circle he co-leads a group on Jewish Identity and Classism.

Earth Etude for Elul 5 - True Tikkun Olam

by Dr. Karen I. Shragg

Euphemisms have always hurt us. Jews have had their ears tuned in to anti-semitic language for a long long time and know when someone is trying to paint us in a negative picture while couching it coded language.

But there is a new way that euphemisms are hurting the whole planet and its future. Recently the forecast of species extinctions and climate change have alarmed us and sent us running to our recycle bins, organic food and if we have time, to our laptops to write letters to the editor about the evils of using pesticides. We hear the euphemism, "Human Activity" anytime we need to blame why species are struggling to survive. From bees to giraffes, warblers to elephants, we are told that "Human Activity" is to blame. We know that we drive too many cars eat too high on the food chain and buy too many trinkets. We live in homes that are spewing out way too much carbon. This euphemism is particularly dangerous because it doesn't paint the clear picture that our numbers matter. These numbers matter: 7.6 billion and adding over 82 million a year. Those numbers need to be repeated over and over again until they stick. 

My dear parents were married 70 years ago this August in a synagogue in Omaha, Nebraska, back when the world had less than 3 billion human inhabitants. In their lifetime, exponential growth and medical advances plus the eradication of many diseases have added an unsustainable 5.5 billion more of us on our limited planet. We have become ecologically illiterate over time as we have focused on our well-being rather than on the key to survival of all species: the recognition that we must all live within our carrying capacity. Biological limits can be pushed back due to human inventions such as synthetic fertilizers but there is always a price to pay. We pay for it in pollution scarcity and suffering of all species. 

Tikkun Olam is a deeply Jewish ethic that is supposed to be about valuing the repairing of the world. It too becomes a euphemism when it does not include the recognition of the oppressive nature of overpopulation. To repair our world we must open our eyes and hearts to the hard cold facts about how rapidly we are going in the opposite direction from Tikkun Olam. In the time it has taken me to write this 10,000 new passengers have been added, net gain to Mother Earth and She now needs to find dwindling resources to support them. 

Once we deeply understand the fallout from our growing human populations and the way that we deplete the very resources we need because we cannot help but consume as apex predators, we will find solutions. Smoking isn't just dangerous, smoking kills us. We now have laws in place that have starting working because we know the true nature of the problem. We must start the journey towards true Tikkun Olam. We need to do so without euphemistically painting a picture that excludes our frighteningly high human numbers. I hope it's not too late.

Karen I. Shragg, PhD, is a naturalist and manager of a community based nature center in Minnesota. She is an author of both children’s books and books for adults. Karen is an overpopulation activist and wrote the book Move Upstream.. A Call to Solve Overpopulation in 2015. 

Earth Etude for Elul 4 - Experiencing G!D in the Wilderness

by Rabbi Greg Hersh

Elul is the time of year where we can take a break from our routine and set ourselves on a path of returning to our purest and best selves. For many Jewish people, this involves getting dressed up and attending long services. In addition to (or in lieu of) those experiences, we can also accomplish these annual goals by stepping into the natural world, just like our teacher, Moses.

One day, Moses was doing his usual work of tending Jethro’s flock, when he decided to “turn aside now, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt. And when G!D saw that he turned aside to see, G!D called unto him out of the midst of the bush.” (Exodus 3:3-4) 

Looking at the text, it’s clear that ONLY because Moses “turned aside to see” that G!D called to him and proceeded to explain Moses’ life mission to him. The Jewish tradition is replete with examples of finding spirituality and purpose in natural settings. All the way back in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve “heard the voice of the Lord G!D walking in the garden.” (Genesis 3:8) Later, when Abraham was “near the great trees of Mamre,” G-D appeared to him. (Genesis 18:1) When Jacob fled civilization and went to sleep on a rock, he had his mystical experience of seeing a ladder to heaven.

We get so bogged down in our busyness and our routines that we often forget to “turn aside” to smell the flowers, or to spend time immersing ourselves in the life-giving energies of the natural world. How many miracles have we missed because were too busy to “turn aside to see”?

When we enter the natural world, we awaken our senses and open ourselves to the miracles that constantly surround us. From hearing the songs of the birds to witnessing the majesty of a butterfly, being outdoors intensifies our awareness and mindfulness. This Elul, I invite you to spend some time in the natural world in preparation for the High Holy Days. 

On Yom Kippur, we’ll recite lifnei Hashem tit’haru (Before G!D, you are purified). Maybe the best place to find purification is within the sanctuaries that G!D built, namely, the forests, the seashores, the mountains, and other natural environs. By standing within and fully experiencing G!D’s creation, your senses will awaken. You will find harmony and sanctuary. You will deepen your connection to the earth. You will be purified.

Rabbi Greg Hersh is an avid guitar player, lover of meditation, and a graduate from Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. He has been the spiritual leader of Temple Emmanuel of Wakefield since 2016. In his spare time, he is also the owner of Burning Bush Adventures, which offers outdoor Jewish experiences and retreats for New Englanders. More information can be found at BurningBushAdventures.com. 

Earth Etude for Elul 3 - 200 Jewels

by Thea Iberall

I had a medical emergency. The room felt like the galley of a sinking ship and I was lurching against the walls. The doctor said my heart had become irregular. He handed me blood thinners and I wanted to run away. My mind flooded with trying to figure out what to do. His western medicine uses empirically-based tools and years of rigorous scientific testing. It’s ingrained into us to believe doctors. But this medicine is what killed my father.

Besides, it is only one model, one that continually evolves. Look at how much Western medicine has learned in the last 50 years. We can’t even imagine what tools will be discovered in the next 50 years. Meanwhile, the Eastern approach—thousands of years older—tells us we are also an energy body, bathed in all sorts of energy flows. Even western science knows that our cells store and emit electricity; every action of our bodies involves electrochemical signals. The electromagnetic fields around us are measurable. 

I want to use an Eastern approach. I want to run to my acupuncturist and call on every energy worker I know. But I agree to start with the western medical procedure. 

The surgical day care center at Metrowest Hospital is on the third floor. My nurse, Peg, has worked there 31 years. Her scrubs are a flowered shirt and pink pants. I lie in the hospital bed with a warm blanket over me. The paper hat on my head is tilted sideways like a beret. They wheel my bed into the corner of a large room and hook me up. Dr. Desai is a friendly, older Indian man, who nods and smiles. He has quizzed me and is satisfied I know what is going to happen. I’m talking to the anesthesiologist and then suddenly, I’m waking up and it’s over.

The nurses are talking about a cream for the burns on my chest, but I am looking at the monitor. It is showing a perfect rhythm. Joy and gratitude fill my body. Peg thrusts an EKG readout into my hands. On the left, I see the irregular beats. On the right is the regular hills and mountains of my regular rhythm. In the middle is the shock of 200 joules that jolted my heart and burned my skin. 

What’s going to happen now? I may or may not be totally out of atrial fibrillation. Friends have had this procedure two, three or more times. Should I continue the Western medicine approach or turn to Eastern medicine?

I’m staring at the jolt. Just to the right of it there is a flatline for about half a second. Was I dead? I think about t’shuvah, returning to spirit, and I begin wondering that perhaps there is a third way. A place of trust, with me changing my attitude, correcting my past mistakes. So I’ve stopped stressing out and multi-tasking. I’m walking two miles a day, breathing in the trees. I’m not reaching for my stethoscope and I’m not clearing my heart chakra every second to check on the state of my heart. I’m letting go and living in trust aligned with the life force. I am living in the great quantum state of the unknown.

Our minds are powerful entities. Our intentions can create our physical reality. My heart will find its natural rhythm no matter which medical model I follow. Those 200 joules are ephemeral. I think of the 200 jewels I have in my life: my wife, my friends, my family, my community; the gifts of love and support that my parents gave me; my curiosity, my religion, my spirituality, my education, my career, my abilities, food, shelter, my health, my brain, my heart. 

I choose to live in acceptance, gratitude, trust, and love. Having faith I will be okay.

Thea Iberall, PhD, is on the leadership team of the Jewish Climate Action Network-MA. Iberall is the author of The Swallow and the Nightingale, a visionary fiction novel about a 4,000-year-old secret brought through time by the birds. In this fable, she addresses the real moral issue of today: not whom you love, but what we are doing to the planet. Iberall is also the playwright of We Did It For You! Women’s Journey Through History – a musical about how women got their rights in America, told by the women who were there. Along with her family, she was inducted into the International Educators Hall of Fame for creative teaching methods. In her work, she bridges between heart and mind and teaches through performance, the written word, poetry, sermons, workshops, and storytelling. www.theaiberall.com

Earth Etude for Elul 2 - A Plan

by Judith Black

When despair for my planet came ramming down my door, my heart, my hope, I stood crushed.

When despair entered my bloodstream and resonated as cancer, I nodded toward death.

When despair began to drive away friends, family, like a toxic odor, I kept belching it out.

Then Spring woke the earth. It bloomed in every color imaginable. It smelt like the heaven of the very good.

It started to grow cabbage and weeds and insects and flowers. It lives.

If this mother of us all has the resilience to wake up and give life, who am I to lose hope?

Come my friends, let us dig in the dark earth, thank this life giver and get back to the work of her protection.

Judith Black’s traditional and original stories rock laughing audiences to their feet. Winner of the Oracle: Circle of Excellence, storytelling’s most coveted award, Judith has 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 12 CAJE conferences, is on the faculty of the Maggid Institute of Reclaiming Judaism, and is active in 350.org, Sustainable Marblehead, the Jewish Climate Action Network, and just had air source heat pumps put in her home. For more information about Judith’s work: www.storiesalive.com and www.tellingstoriestochildren.com.

Earth Etude for Elul 1 - Of Happenstance and Wondering

by Rabbi Katy Allen

By happenstance of geography,

Eden--

gathering the fruits of the land

borne by dint of natural ecosystems,

ever-changing as the seasons progress--

is just a distant prehistoric memory 

of Paradise.

From Eden straight into working the land we went--

by the sweat of your brow

you shall till the land.

No pauses with our new-found awareness

to experience

being fully integrated into the ecosystems

outside the gates of Gan Eden. 

No longer were we part and parcel of Creation,

now we had--

and have--

dominion;

now we reshape the landscape,

the ecosystems,

the water, the air, the flora and fauna.

By eating of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge,

we became like G!d,

attempting to rule the rest of the world

but without Divine wisdom 

or understanding.

Every seventh year, 

we endeavor to recapture a bit of Eden--

letting the land lie fallow,

depending once again-- 

ideally--

only upon the natural bounty

of the original ecosystems--

what remains of them

after achieving our fruit-eating-induced

relationship of power

over the land.

Why this seventh-year reverie?

Perhaps stored in our genes

we retain a memory of collapse--

agriculturally induced destruction of an ancient ecosystem,

decline in productivity,

engendering vulnerability at the hands of invaders,

or of climate-change stoked famine

that triggered collapse.

Or perhaps the Edenic understanding

that if G!d had not rested on the seventh day--

if neither we nor our beasts nor our servants 

nor the land

ever rested,

that this, too,

would inevitably 

lead to collapse.

All of this a happenstance of geography,

G!d having made the Divine Self known

in a specific and powerful way

in a cradle of civilization,

in a place where agriculture arose

so many millennia ago.

A wondering arises--

what might Yah have said to Adam and Eve

in different corporeal whereabouts,

in a land where no hoe or plow 

had ever struck the soil,

no animal 

had ever fallen under the yolk of Homo sapiens,

no collapse of civilization--

as a result of famine 

or agriculture-altered ecosystems--

had ever wreaked havoc

on the psyches and the historical memories

of the peoples,

in a land with ongoing experienced knowledge 

of gathering the fruits of the land

borne by dint of natural ecosystems,

ever changing as the seasons progress--

what might G!d have said?

A wondering arises,

how might history have progressed

if our tradition had truly kept alive

not just the memory,

but the non-agricultural knowledge and practice 

of how to live in Eden,

how to be an integral part 

of the native ecosystems--

and the critical importance thereof?

A wondering arises.

מקריות הגיאוגרפיה

למקריות הגיאוגרפיה,

גן עדן--

איסוף יבול הארץ

אשר נָבע באֶמצעות מערכות אקולוגיות טבעיות,

לעולם משתנה כשהעונות מתקדמות--

הוא רק זכרון רחוק פרה-היסטורי

של אוטופיה.

מגן עדן ישר לעבודת האדמה עברנו--

בזעת אפיך

תעבוד את האדמה.

ללא הפסקות עם גילוי מוּדעוּתינו החדשה

לַחֲוות

להתמזג לגמרי במערכות האקולוגיות

מחוץ לשערי גן עדן.

כבר לא היינו חלק אינטגרלי מהבריאה,

עכשיו היתה לנו--

ויש לנו--

שׁליטה;

כעת אנחנו משנים את צורת הנוף,

המערכות האקולוגיות,

המיים, האוויר, הצמחייה והחי.

באכילת פרי עץ הדעת,

הפכנו להיות כמו אלהים,

מנסים לשלוט בשאר העולם

אבל בלי החכמה 

או ההבנה האלוהית.

כל שנה שביעית

אנחנו מתאמצים להשיב לעצמנו מעט מגן עדן--

נותנים לאדמה לכרוב,

תלויים שוב--

בתכלית השלמות--

רק ביבול  הטבעי

מהמערכות האקולוגיות המקוריות --

מה שנשאר מהן

אחרי אכילתנו מהפרי

שעוררה בנו יחסים של כח

על האדמה.

מדוע ההזיה של שנה שביעית?

אולי מאוחסן בגנים שלנו 

אנחנו שומרים על זכר ההתמוטטות--

מושפעת מחקלאוּת שהחריבה את המערכת האקולוגית העתיקה

שקיעה ביצור,

גורמת לפגיעות על-ידיי פולשים,

או רעב שנגרם על-ידיי שינוי אקלים

שהביאו  להתמוטטות.

או אולי ההבנה האוטופית

שלולא נח אלהים ביום השביעי--

ולולא גם אנחנו ובהמותינו ועבדינו

והאדמה

אף פעם לא היינו נחים,

שגם זה 

היה בהכרח

מוביל להתמוטטות.

כל אלו הן מקריות הגיאוגרפיה

אלהים התודע בעצמאות האלוהית

בדרך מסוימת וחזקה

בערש ציביליזציה,

במקום בו החקלאות התחילה

לפני אלף אלפי שנים.

פליאה מתעוררת--

מה היה יה אומר לאדם וחוה

במקום גשמי אחר

בארץ שבה אף מכוש או מחרשה

מעולם לא נגעו באדמה,

אף חיה 

מעולם לא נפלה תחת העול של Homo sapiens

אף התמוטטות של ציביליזציה--

כתוצאה מרעב

או מערכות אקולוגיות שהשתנו בגלל החקלאות--

מעולם לא  המיטה הרס

על הנשמות והזכרונות ההסטוריים

של העמים,

בארץ שבה היה ידע וניסיון מתמשכים

באיסוף פרי האדמה

נשאו בכח מערכות אקולוגיות טבעיות,

משתנות ללא הרף כשהעונות מתחלפות--

מה היה אלהים אומר?

פליאה מתעוררת--

איך היתה ההיסטוריה מתקדמת

לו באמת מסורתנו נשמרה בחיים

לא רק הזכרון,

אלא גם הידע והנסיון הלא-חקלאיים

איך לחיות בגן עדן,

איך להיות חלק אחיד

של המערכות האקולוגיות המקומיות--

והחשיבות המכרעת בזה?

פליאה מתעוררת.

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 co-founder and President pro-tem of Jewish Climate Action Network-MA. She is a board certified chaplain and a former hospital and hospice chaplain and now considers herself an eco-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.

Re-Turning, Turning Around, Turning Toward: What Does it Take?

by Rabbi Katy Allen

The Jewish month of Elul is almost here. It's meant as a beginning of our process of turning and re-turning and returning to G!d as we prepare for the most holy day of the year, Yom Kippur - the Day of Atonement. It is a time to turn away from that which is not good for us, others, and the world, and to turn toward healing, wisdom, blessing, and all that is good for us, others, and the world.

Common wisdom reminds us that it requires 21 days - three weeks - of doing something in order to change. Elul has 29 days. And then there are 10 more days till we get to Yom Kippur. It should be plenty of time, right?

It seems to take a lifetime to learn how to live. My mother used to quote Rabbi Manfred Swarensky, z'l, long-time rabbi in Madison, WI, and a Holocaust survivor, as saying that we need to live twice, the first time to learn how, and the second time to do it all correctly.

Our reality is that we have only one life. But every year at this time, Jewish tradition reminds us that we can do better, and gives us tools and encouragement to do so.

The Earth Etudes for Elul, reflections on t'shuvah and Earth, will begin this Saturday evening, with the beginning of Elul. They are here to help each of us along the road of return, in particular in our connection to the Earth. During the month of Elul you will receive daily reflections from rabbis, priestesses, environmentalists, musicians, poets, and more, with thoughts about how to renew our connection to Earth and to G!d. May you  find in these etudes wisdom, support, and food for thought.

Many blessings on your journey.

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 co-founder and President pro-tem of Jewish Climate Action Network-MA. She is a board certified chaplain and a former hospital and hospice chaplain and now considers herself an eco-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.

Tu B'Av and Love

by Rabbi Katy Allen

As the afternoon wanes and Shabbat approaches, the less-than-familiar-for-most-of-us holiday of TuB'Av, the 15th of the month of Av, also nears it's end.

There were no days of joy in Israel greater than the fifteenth of Av and Yom Kippur. On these days the daughters of Jerusalem would go out in borrowed white garments in order not to shame any one who had none...The daughters of Jerusalem come out and dance in the vineyards. What would they say? Young man, lift up your eyes and see what you choose for yourself. Do not set your eyes on beauty but set your eyes on the family.  --Mishnah Ta'anit 4:8

For centuries, this holiday was marked only by the absence of penitential prayers during the morning service. But it modern-day Israel, it is becoming a holiday of LOVE. A little like Valentine's Day here.

As a species, what love is more fundamental to our physical and spiritual well-being than our love of the Earth?

We need the Earth. Our very existence is dependent upon it being a reliable source of food, air, water, and shelter. But if we only take, as with the human loved ones in our lives, the relationship is doomed to failure.

And so, on this day of love, let us remember to give.

When we prepare to make a purchase, let us ask, Is this action good for Earth and it's inhabitants?  If the answer is "yes," then go for it. If the answer is "no," let us consider an alternative action.

When we prepare to vote, locally and on up, let us ask, Is this vote good for the Earth and it's inhabitants?  If the answer is "yes," then go for it. If the answer is "no," let us consider an alternative vote.

When we prepare to travel, let us ask, Is this trip good for the Earth and it's inhabitants?  If the answer is "yes," then go for it. If the answer is "no," let us consider how to repair our action.

When we prepare to do anything, from morning until evening, let us ask, Is this action good for Earth and it's inhabitants?  If the answer is "yes," then go for it. If the answer is "no," let us consider an alternative action.

Let us bring this question into our lives as though it were a blessing, as though it were a prayer, and let us answer it with all honesty. Let us bring love for the Earth into every action we take. It deserves it.

Tu B'Av sameach! Happy 15th of Av.

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 co-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 and now considers herself an eco-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.