Earth Etude for Elul 9 - Environmental Justice and the Legacy of Redlining: A Call for Teshuvah

by Courtney Cooperman

Jewish teachings about environmental stewardship emphasize our responsibility to protect Creation for future generations. In the Garden of Eden, God instructs Adam and Eve: “Take care not to spoil or destroy My world, for if you do, there will be no one to repair it after you” (Midrash Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7:13). Although Judaism frames our responsibility to care for the planet in forward-looking terms, our commitment to environmental protection demands that we look backwards, too. The concept of teshuvah requires that we consider the connection between historic injustices and who bears the burdens of environmental harm.

In North America, People of Color are disproportionately exposed to environmental hazards and lack equal access to environmental benefits. This concept, known as environmental injustice, was first articulated by grassroots leaders of Color in the 1980s. As the white-led, mainstream environmental movement focused on the degradation of nature, People of Color organized around the environmental harms affecting their own communities: the contaminated water they drank, the polluted air they breathed, and the toxic waste sites in their neighborhoods.

The concentration of environmental harms in Communities of Color is the product of centuries of systemic racism, including a New Deal-era policy called redlining. During the Great Depression, the federal government established the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) to provide emergency relief and support homeownership. HOLC created “residential security maps” to determine the supposed “riskiness” of lending in any given neighborhood, explicitly basing its designations on race rather than proof of creditworthiness. HOLC mapped white neighborhoods in green, labeling them safe investments, and Black neighborhoods in red, deeming them unsuitable borrowers. 

Federal disinvestment from Black communities drove down property values, making these neighborhoods more attractive to projects that required a lot of cheap land—like highways and industrial sites, which are made with heat-absorbing asphalt and concrete. Decades later, in a warming world, communities of Color are suffering the consequences. Formerly redlined neighborhoods are an average of five degrees Fahrenheit warmer than non-redlined neighborhoods within the same metropolitan areas. Meanwhile, green-rated neighborhoods enjoy the benefits of denser tree canopy, which provides shade and cools down streets.

Redlining bears significant responsibility for the racially inequitable impact of climate change. To address the intersecting crises of climate change and systemic racism, our country must collectively repent and make amends for the sin of redlining. For those of us who benefit from policies that subsidized white wealth-building and left Black families behind, we must do our own personal teshuvah, acknowledge our complicity in an unjust system, and work to repair its ongoing harms.  

Courtney Cooperman is a 2020-2021 Eisendrath Legislative Assistant at the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. Her policy portfolio includes environmental and climate justice, economic justice and labor issues, reproductive rights, hate crimes, and international religious freedom. She studied Political Science at Stanford University, where she wrote an honors thesis on homelessness as an obstacle to political participation. Originally from New Jersey, she currently resides in Washington, D.C.

Earth Etude for Elul 8 - Not What I Want

by Rabbi Benjamin Weiner

no longer uncover 
in the outer world 
to sink into my bones.

When the baby
comes in, I hold
her with vague 
arms, and stroke
the softness of
her skin, and run
my fingers through
her red-black hair
like a comb, and 
say a little prayer 
in my head to
ward away the
pleasure that will
only hurt me
in the end.

I go downstairs
and, for a brief
moment, cower in
the beauty of my
bursting son, then
outside to a grey
rainless sky,
the garden in bloom,
no longer by divine
right, but accident,
the maple, tall
and proud like
a grandfather who
doesn’t know
he’s dying, and—

when it isn’t the panic,
it's just the dull
relentless ache
of nothing certain
but mortal change, 
and things not being 
what I want.

Benjamin Weiner is the spiritual leader of the Jewish Community of Amherst.  He lives with his wife and two children on their three-acre homestead farm in Western Massachusetts.

Earth Etude for Elul 7 - Trees from my travels spell hope for civilization

by Susie Davidson

When people admire my frequent traveling, I always say yes, but it's budget travel. "But that's the best way to really see places," they usually respond.

It's true. Not only do I get to mingle with locals and walk all over, but on buses and trains, you see the outer landscapes.

Trees by the Mississippi River in Burlington, Iowa

You see the fields, the hills, the bodies of water, the crops and the grazing animals. When lucky, you see the coast. And when super lucky, you see the trees.

"I think that I shall never see/A poem lovely as a tree," wrote Joyce Kilmer in 1914.

"A tree whose hungry mouth is prest/Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;/A tree that looks at God all day,/And lifts her leafy arms to pray," he beautifully and aptly continued.

Trees with a red bush accent in Yorba Linda, California 

And he humbly finished: "Poems are made by fools like me,/But only God can make a tree."

This is spiritually true. The Torah contains many passages that praise trees, and warn against cutting them down. 

And in Deuteronomy 15:27, Rabeynu Bachya said the 12 springs before them in Elim represented the 12 tribes, and the 70 palm trees, the 70 then nations of the world.

Trees on a red rock in the American Southwest

In a July 14 Boston Globe op-ed about the current climate crisis, Marie E. Antoine and Stephen C. Sillett of Humboldt State University of California referred to trees as "one part of the solution growing all around us." They explained how trees alone can’t save the world, but can help.

"Few organisms are as incredible as giant trees," they wrote. "Contemplate the sheer magnitude of what they do. A tiny seed finds a nook for germination. The seedling roots connect to symbiotic soil fungi. The sapling forages for resources — light, water, nutrients. The treetop grows hopefully ever upward... Its lifespan may be long enough for human civilizations to rise and fall."

Human awareness and behavior certainly seem to fall far more than rise. But Antoine and Sillett, calling trees "biodiversity refuges and massive carbon sinks," find some salvation. "They occupy only a small portion of the planet’s surface, but they store huge amounts of carbon and provide critical arboreal habitat," they write.

During the pandemic, people headed outdoors and rediscovered the joys of walking in nature. They felt its healing, calming influence. They breathed in the negative ions, and a connection that had been lost in all of the hustle and bustle of life as we knew it. The trees were waiting for us, giving, not taking, as always.

Our sages well understood this. In "A Garden of Choice Fruits (Shomrei Adamah, 1991), Rabbi David E. Stein cited Rabbi Abraham ben Maimonides: "In order to serve God, one needs access to the enjoyment of the beauties of nature – meadows full of flowers, majestic mountains, flowing rivers. For all these are essential to the spiritual development of even the holiest of people."

Desert trees in Los Cerillos, New Mexico

On April 25, five days before Arbor Day, Globe columnist Thomas Farragher featured Boston arborist Max Ford-Diamond, who cares for the health and wellbeing of some 40,000 area trees.

"This is a guy who helps put the emerald in the Emerald Necklace," Farragher wrote.

The outlook for Boston is encouraging. “Each year, we plant between 1,000 and 1,600 trees,” Ford-Diamond explained. “This year, we’re hoping to plant 2,000 trees. We got a very large increase in our budget, thanks to the City Council. We went from $750,000 to $1.7 million.”

"That’s a lot of trees," Farragher marvels.

We need every single one.

Tu BiShvat, the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Shevat, is called "Rosh HaShanah La'Ilanot," or "New Year of the Trees." It is a grand, green festival in Israel.

Trees work double duty for us, and deserve a couple of new years. This Rosh Hashanah, let's rededicate ourselves to the beautiful green life forces around us that might possibly save our civilization.

Susie Davidson, a Boston-based journalist, is a columnist for Wicked Local | Gannett | USA Today Network. She has contributed to HuffPost, the Houston Chronicle, the Forward, the Jewish Advocate, JewishBoston.com, Haaretz, JPost and other national and international media. She is currently writing a book on the history of protest music for Charlesbridge Publishing.

Earth Etude for Elul 6 - I Am a Terrible Gardener

by Rabbi Megan Doherty

I am a terrible gardener. But I garden anyway.

I hate weeding. I water my plants too much, or too little. 

I don’t know from fertilizer, or mulch, or those fancy cages which keep out the deer and the birds.

I live in rural Ohio, and when I look at the the thriving mini-farms my neighbors create and tend, I want to throw my hands up in despair.

But I plant.

One year, my dad showed up at our house with a bunch of lumber and built raised beds in our backyard. The process was a beacon for awestruck kindergartners, who showed up with wide eyes and endless questions and were eventually allowed to ‘help’.

Our next-door neighbor brought us a truck bed full of soil.

So every spring, I select seed packets in a fit of blind optimism. I carefully follow the directions for depth and distance, giving each seed no more than its place and no less than its space.

I even start out mindfully watering. I go out in the cool magic of early morning, or the rose-gold of twilight, to offer what care I can to the thirsty potential hiding under the dirt.

But then it rains, and it throws me off my schedule. Weeds creep in, and I don’t catch them before they put down roots and decide to stay awhile. (It’s hard to argue with them - I also think this piece of land is a beautiful spot to raise a family.) I travel, for work and for fun, and no one else remembers to check on the plants.

I come home to beds that look like jungles, parched earth, and a feeling that I can’t possibly ever get back any control, or make this space more beautiful. 

But then one day, in late July or early August, I wander past the vibrant overgrowth of the beds (which I have been looking away from in shame for days or weeks) and I find tomatoes. Giant cucumbers. Purple beans and sweet peas. Just waiting to be noticed and plucked from their vines.

The bounty stuns me. I am in awe of the way the peas and beans are using the weeds for scaffolding. The cucumbers looping and whirling their way over the tops of the beds and almost on to the lawn. Bright orange tomatoes smugly growing over and around the lamb’s ear and crabgrass trying to horn in on their turf.

Every year in Elul I reflect on the distance between who I am and who I aspire to be. And, in a good year, I pull back and reflect even on my aspirations. Is my heart’s focus on the shiny promotion, the dream fellowship, the glorious rows of corn my neighbor grows? Or is my soul craving a chance to shape my community, to deepen my learning and my friendships, to celebrate the miracle of food grown from sunshine, water and dirt. 

I am a terrible gardener. But my garden still grows.

Rabbi Megan Doherty (she/her) is the Director of Hillel and Campus Jewish Life at Oberlin College.  She is a graduate of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. She is a certified Jewish Mindfulness Meditation Instructor through the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, and is a graduate of the Hartman Institute's Fellowship for Campus Professionals. She has an extensive background in facilitation and mediation, and is a state-certified mediator in the state of Ohio. She serves on the board of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, and was a founding co-chair of the Reconstructionist Movement’s Israel Commission. She lives (and attempts to garden) in Oberlin, Ohio, with her partner, their daughter, and their dog.

Earth Etude for Elul 5 - Choosing Life as Nerds for the Earth

by Harvey Michaels

Moses’ final message from G-d: This day…I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live.  For millennia we have reflected on what it means to choose life; realizing that it is not always our life we’re choosing – our choices are more about our children and theirs; our communities, and our world.

What does it mean to Choose Life for the Earth?  In recent years, I’m privileged to ask this question to classrooms of talented young people, and learned that when given the space to creatively engage this question, informed by science and their hearts, good choices come to light.  These students are Nerds for the Earth -  not only learning but seeing what others haven’t yet seen; many then choose life with career paths towards making our world a better place.  

Love for Earth is Universal. A remarkable cross-section of America gathered for the first Earth Day in 1970, in retrospect a holy day of teshuva when we first asked: will we fix the messes we’ve made of this world?  We then chose life with profound actions to remove poisons from our air and water. Today, addressing climate, our mission is again clear: to repair the Earth by transitioning from fossil fuel use quickly, with Environmental Justice by helping those most impacted by the worsening plagues of fire, sea level rise, and extreme weather.

To choose life for our Earth, we must learn. We need courage to act, but also collective wisdom for our choices to result in a true solution. Our wisdom is improving: most of us have learned that climate change is a real problem, and was caused by our choices to burn fossil fuels. What many of us haven’t learned is that there still is hope - it is possible to stop climate change in time to prevent the worst effects; it’s not too expensive, and makes our lives better.  But let’s learn the specifics; how our home heat, travel, food must change. 

To choose life for our Earth, we must act together. The true question about hope is not can we, but will we? Like the first Earth Day, we can come together – but not by linking climate action to a political or age group. A good Earth is for all of us: let’s share the joy of healing it from climate change.

As age 16 Greta Thunberg taught us: climate education builds conviction to unite behind the science. When millions joined her Friday strikes, world leaders listened to them, and many young people she inspired began to find their own paths as Nerds for the Earth. She and they in turn inspire me to keep doing, keep teaching, keep learning – frequently from them.

A lovely day, in a beautiful place, especially with people we love, is a holy place that will live on in our hearts.  But so many are now being driven from their holy places by plagues brought by climate change; and the profound moments we experience today in our holy places might not be there in years to come – unless we choose to learn, act, and help others.  Choosing Life to repair the Earth is a choice we have; in service for all who want to learn, all who need our help, and all that will follow us.  

Harvey Michaels enjoys being an MIT faculty member, teaching and learning about Energy and Climate Innovation, while investigating climate plan initiatives for cities, the state and federal government. He also engages in environmental justice advocacy, participating in JCAN, GBIO, and synagogue initiatives, among others. Before returning to MIT in 2008, Harvey led an energy efficiency company for many years.

Earth Etude for Elul 4 - A Letter to Mother Earth

by Rabbi Judy Schindler

Dear Mother Earth,

As we spiritually make our way through the month of Elul and approach the anniversary of your and our creation, you are in our prayers for healing. 

An illness extends across the globe – COVID-19.  We know that you can feel it.  You wonder why people wear masks when the air should be so perfect to inhale. 

You cringe that we have come to fear rains and their floods, winds and their consequent hurricanes, when instead we should stand in awe of the miraculous cycles of your natural world.

We have learned  many lessons during the pandemic.

Mother Earth, we have learned how beautiful you are. As we have stopped during the year gone by, we have learned that our busyness – so much of our driving, our flying, our racing from place to place -- was at your expense.  We are called human beings but we have forgotten how to be – in relationship with ourselves, with our neighbors, and with you.

In Genesis, we were given simple instructions. Adam, the first human being, was created from adamah, the earth. He was placed in the garden, and he, and consequently we, were given a two-fold obligation, “to till it and to tend it.”

Boundaries were set so that as we labored over the land we would protect it. One day a week, the earth gets Shabbat. One year in seven, the earth gets shmita, a sabbatical year of lying fallow for rejuvenation.

Mother Earth,  we have learned that we are all interconnected. What happens in China, what happens in India, what happens in Washington, impacts us all – whether COVID-19 or climate change. 

In harming you, we have harmed our neighbors. Cities across our globe have been segregated by socioeconomic status where almost all outcomes are determined by the lot of land on which our children are born – educational outcomes, health outcomes, exposure to environmental harm.

Not only is humanity facing a pandemic, but you are sick, too. Your temperature is increasing. Your symptoms are getting worse. The longer we wait to act, the more you and consequently we are struggling with extreme weather.  

We are so sorry for our neglect. 

Mother Earth, Your treatment requires a change of behavior - our turning from our dependence on fossil fuels to green energy. 

The time is now - to love God and love our neighbor through our love of you. 

Hafiz, a 14th century Muslim writer, wrote a poem called A Love Like That.

Even after

all this time

the sun never

says to the earth,

"You owe Me."

Look

what happens

with a love like that.

 

It lights the 

whole

sky.

The earth

would die

if the sun stopped

kissing her.

 

Mother Earth, may we, like the sun, kiss you and love you daily through our actions, tending to you and healing you. Mi shebeirach, may the one who blessed our ancestors, bless and heal you, O earth, and enable us to do the same. Amen.

 

Rabbi Judy Schindler is the Sklut Professor of Jewish Studies and the Director of the Center for Peace and Social Justice at Queens University of Charlotte, and Rabbi Emerita of Temple Beth El in Charlotte.

Earth Etude for Elul 3 - Joining Fifty Years of Mystic River Watershed Environmental Advocacy

By Karen L. Grossman

In 2009 I was invited to get involved with the Mystic River Watershed Association, established in 1972 with a long, hard mission of environmental advocacy. As a board member for 10 years, I was able to admire how we partnered with other groups to champion environmental changes for MA, pursuing concerns with land use and transportation, involving the location of the Alewife Red Line Station, a highway building moratorium, the Amelia Earhart Dam completion,

and greenway connectivity into Boston.

While tabling at events, I spread the word that MyRWA counteracted pollution and development, had targeted Grace Chemical’s responsibility for the childhood leukemia cluster in Woburn, MA and other local Federal Superfund and toxic waste sites. 

like at the Wynn Casino property, where after cleanup, 
they created a living shoreline along the Mystic River.

Our advocacy, beginning in 2012, helped rebuild the Mystic Lakes Dam and beyond with fish ladders. 

including recently at Horn Pond

In 2008, a bucket brigade aided the herring migration at Old Mystic Lakes Dam. 
(photo by David Messina)

Watching the fish on the fishcam, I rejoiced when the counts in the Mystic River herring migration tripled to 750,000! 

My biggest challenge was obtaining a hundred prize donations for the Annual Herring Run and Paddle Races. I also participated in cleanups, sponsored “Reverse Tashlich” and “Plastover” with my temple, advocated for legislation, and attended MyRWA conferences and talks. Travelling to cities and towns in the watershed was a great opportunity for me to discuss climate change resilience. The main Mystic River/Lakes now have an EPA Water Quality Grade of A-! I continue to support a vision focused on a better future. 

Since I joined nearly 50 years of persistence, my part in environmental action continues to evolve along with MyRWA’s! As a result of my involvement over the years, I have embraced the conscientious attitude I need to alter my own bad habits by minimizing single use plastic and composting natural kitchen waste, doing my best to improve the environment. I hope you’ll think about how you can contribute to this movement, too! 

Karen L. Grossman is a retired speech and language pathologist, a member of Temple Shir Tikvah, Winchester, MA’s Adult Social Committee, past Board member of the Mystic River Watershed Association, presently on the Outreach and Development Committees, and President of the Friends of Spy Pond Park, Arlington, MA. She welcomes your comments to karen.myrwa@gmail.com regarding the above ideas and refers you to: www.mysticriver.org for more details of MyRWA’s history leading up to the 50^th anniversary of the organization.

Earth Etudes for Elul 2 - Where Heaven Is Here

by Andy Oram

What is heaven? How does one earn the right to enter heaven? I speculated on these questions by examining the Hebrew word for heaven, which is "shama'im" (שָׁמַיִם). The word is somewhat odd because it's plural, as indicated by the "im" (ים) ending. Here is my parsing of the word.

If "shama'im" (שָׁמַיִם) is plural, what's the singular? Take off the plural ending, and the singular appears to be simply "sham" (שָׁמ), which is Hebrew for "there." Basically, heaven is just multiple "there's".

Each of us has a "there" we would like to reach--an ideal self that we are trying to achieve. And each person has a different "there," because we each have different aspirations and strengths.

I think the Hebrew word is telling us that you can't get into heaven by achieving just your own goals. You may get "there" yourself, but it stands alone. But by helping other people achieve their goals in life, you can reach multiple "there's".

We all need to reach the ecological "there" of 350 parts per million maximum of carbon to create a "shama'im" (the sky) that can sustain our lives.

A Chasidic midrash explains why Moses took a half-shekel from each Israelite (Exodus 30:13) in order to do a census, when a whole shekel would be easier to collect. According to the midrash, the half-shekel indicated that no Israelite could feel whole by themselves; they needed all the other Israelites.

If all of us could help each other achieve our "theres", maybe we'd be in heaven.

Fussy grammatical notes:

My etymology of "shama'im" (שָׁמַיִם) is spurious, but it's still a legitimate basis for a commentary. The true origin of the word is obscure, but it is shared by most Middle Eastern languages, as described in a Wiktionary entry in Hebrew. Wiktionary suggests that the true root is שמה, not שם. The singular is never used, whatever it may be. The root might be derived from "height" or "big."

Furthermore, if one were to accept "shama'im" as a normal Hebrew word, the second "a" in the usual vocalization represents a pair, not a normal plural.  Still, this kind of plural can be used for any collection of more than one.

Andy Oram is a writer and editor in the computer field. His editorial projects have ranged from a legal guide covering intellectual property to a graphic novel about teenage hackers. Print publications where his writings have appeared include The Economist, the Journal of Information Technology & Politics, and Vanguardia Dossier. He has lived in the Boston, Massachusetts area for more than 30 years. He self-published a memoir, "Backtraces: Three Decades of Computing, Communities, and Critiques", and his poems have been published in Ají, Arlington Literary Journal, Conclave, Genre: Urban Arts, Heron Clan, Offcourse, Panoply, Soul-Lit, and Speckled Trout Review.

Earth Etude for Elul 1 - An Etude Is a Short Musical Composition

by Rabbi Enid C. Lader

An etude is a short musical composition, 

typically for one instrument, 
designed as an exercise 
to improve the technique 
of the player.
Is it finger dexterity?
Bowing alacrity?
Air control?
Rhythmic concentration?

Standing beneath a canopy of trees
I hear the rhythm of their rustling leaves
I feel the heavenly breath of the breeze,
A breath so controlled it seems to last forever.
The tiny birds fly this way and that,
Alighting on one branch and darting off to the next
With a grace and alacrity that only practice can bring.
The river’s waters easily make their way over jutting rocks and stones,
Taking the ascents and descents with ease.

Nature takes her etudes in her stride.
It doesn’t come so easily for us.

Elul reminds us that it is time to turn to our soul’s etudes – 
As we seek to return to – to improve – our best selves.
How can we be better aware of our body’s rhythm 

           as we rustle though our days?
What can we do to appreciate each breath, as we wake to each new day?
How can we make our way from moment to moment…person to person… 
          with grace and alacrity?
What we can do to ease our way through life’s ups and downs?
It takes finding the right teacher.
It takes making the time.
It takes concentration.
It takes practice.

Enid C. Lader is the rabbi at Beth Israel – The West Temple, in Cleveland, Ohio and received ordination from the Academy for Jewish Religion in 2010. For the past eight years, every three months Enid has led members of her congregation on a Shabbat b’Tevah – a Shabbat morning walk through one of the beautiful Metroparks in the area, celebrating Shabbat and the changing seasons of the year. 

Elul Is Coming and So Are the Etudes

by Rabbi Katy Z. Allen

We are rolling around to Elul now on the Jewish calendar. It feels too soon, and yet, it also feels right on time.

Too soon, because Elul always comes too soon. I'm never really ready. And right on time, because it's impossible to be ready. 

The clock ticks, the calendar days fly by, and IT arrives, whatever IT may be. A wedding, a birth, death, the start of a new school year, Shabbat, a difficult conversation – whatever it is we are awaiting, it always comes too soon – or sometimes not soon enough – and it always comes on time.

And so, we pull out the shofar to begin blowing -- or hearing -- it every morning, a reminder to wake up and get ready for the Yamim Noraim, the Days of Awe, and the super-intensity of trying to let go of our defects and come closer to the Mystery. We acknowledge that summer will again draw to a close, always too soon. We watch the sun set earlier each day and light our Shabbat candles earlier each week, but always, always, on time, on their time, on the time of the Universe and of G!d.

Welcome to this year's Earth Etudes for Elul, which will start Sunday evening, written by environmentalists, poets, rabbis, and others, bits of reflection and wisdom on Earth and teshuvah for your journey through this month. Enjoy and b'hatzlachah - good luck with this year's efforts for personal change!

Elul tov – may you have a good and wondrous Elul.

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 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. 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.