Earth Etude for Elul 15 - Reverse Tashlich

by Karen L. Grossman

Growing up near Pennsylvania woods and traveling to many beautiful national parks in this country and worldwide, I learned to appreciate nature. After my career as a helping professional, I delved deeper into fostering my love of environmental beauty and caring for people through a local park group and a watershed association.

With recent experiences, I’ve come to understand that just as there are natural connections among animals, trees and plants, a watershed connects communities from suburban to urban, wealthy to impoverished. I’ve seen how working with a watershed association can help create the essential healthy environment for all waterbodies: oceans, rivers, brooks, lakes and ponds, cleaning up the watershed and promoting social equity. 

I was inspired by reading about “Reverse Tashlich,” collecting trash from the ocean’s shoreline, literally gathering the “sins” of others instead of (or in addition to) throwing away our own sins figuratively, “Tashlich” during Elul and the High Holidays. I thought of implementing such an effort in my area, especially with social justice issues coming to the forefront lately. 

With my watershed association’s help, I can promote not just the collection of trash, but many other actions:  

Planting rain gardens to filter rainwater and diminish flooding,

Establishing more greenways along waterbodies for biking and walking and creating public access,

                                                                                                                                          

And pulling water chestnuts to establish healthier rivers that can be navigated.

The Watershed Association monitors illegal pollution into waterbodies. We discourage the use of phosphorous fertilizers from which stormwater runoff produces weed and algae growth and even toxins that are harmful to higher forms of life. Additional actions are:

advocating environmentally healthy weed treatment,

eliminating invasive plants throughout so natural vegetation can thrive to prevent shoreline erosion,

planting trees in urban areas to create shade and reduce global warming, 

and, yes, collecting litter at its source on our streets, in our parks, and in waterbodies, thus, providing more beautiful recreational opportunities, and healthier habitats for all wildlife and for us, too, of course.

“Reverse Tashlich” can anchor Jewish community efforts to care for the health of our natural environment. What we do up stream in a watershed can have a major impact in more urban, social justice communities downstream. As you may know, Covid-19 has a greater impact in those areas partly because the environment is unhealthy.  So, our efforts take away the “sin” of those who do not care for the earth and help to repair the world, “Tikkun Olam.”  That’s really the goal of “Reverse Tashlich.” 

It is a mitzvah to promote “Reverse Tashlich” with friends and temple members in your area as September and the High Holidays draw near, as well as to engage in year-round activities with your watershed association, 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@klgwoman.com regarding the above ideas and refers you to: 

https://www.repairthesea.org/reverse-tashlich, the inspiration for this etude. 

Earth Etudes for Elul 14 - Finding My Authentic Self

by Thea Iberall

I’m sure everyone’s going to write one of these. How hard life has become under a syndemic at the confluence of a fatal pandemic and a raging climate crisis, all of which has exposed centuries-long racial injustices and social disparities. Over 700,000 deaths have occurred due to Covid-19. The climate crisis is causing 150,000 deaths a year. Over 120,000 square kilometers of tropical rainforests are being lost every year. Wildlife populations have dropped by 60%. A majority of victims of police harm are people of color. One in every three black boys in America can expect to go to jail. The daily news reports leave me unable to concentrate. I don’t know how to plan, I’m afraid of doing anything outside—or even to be with people. Going to my grandson’s baseball game could cause my death.

The year 2020 was going to be a big year for me. I had huge expectations, as did millions of other women around the country. This is the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution, giving women the right to vote. Celebration plans were in the works for years—for a decade or longer—by organizations from all over the country,: marches, festivals, rallies, performances, readings, plays, films. My performing troupe expected to do dozens of shows. We had charts, letters of agreement, contracts, Excel spreadsheets. Everything has had to be cancelled, postponed, or put online. It’s been painful watching the year 2020 dissolve into protective masks, social distancing, and staring at computer screens.

But that’s the thing about expectation. When I make plans, I expect to carry them out. And if they fall through, I get disappointed. Expectations are about living in the future. Disappointment is pain in the present. It’s not fun. But how can I plan for the future and avoid the pain of disappointment? 

There is another word like expectations: that word is ‘expectancy.’ While expectations prevent us from living in the moment and can lead to disappointment, expectancy involves living with intentionality in a flexible way. It’s about embracing change, looking for the positive. In this month of Elul, a time for returning to God, teshuvah, before the high holidays, it is a good time to turn our expectations into expectancy. This is the hallmark of a spiritual practice.

My wife started a new spiritual practice: a daily online meditation group. Every morning, for the last 140 days, she shares a reading with the group and we all meditate on that and then we share our reflections. We have found this practice is a way to explore our authenticity. As we live on the edge of death in this unbearable syndemic, we think about hard-learned truths and share from our most deepest hearts. 

The year 2020 has turned into a year of connecting on a very deep level, a year when I can go to events I never dreamed possible, a year where people from all over the world can experience my performing troupe. And I am getting more done on all sorts of backburner projects. But what I cannot forget is to keep my focus on teshuvah, the expectancy of a spiritual connection.

We’ll be living these new lives for a long time.

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. 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 Etudes for Elul 13 - Next Time You Are Thirsty

by Rayna Carner

Plastic bottles between you and me

Drinken once and then thrown into the sea

Not directly- first they’re thrown in the trash

They travel to the landfill among other ash

Precipitation ensues, carrying empty bottles away

They float into oceans, breaking into micro-pieces for eternal stay

Marine life mistakes bright plastic for treat

Pollution-ridden homes, they decide to eat

Now, those plastic bottles that our oceans are so rich in

Will move from small fish to medium to seafood in our kitchen

So that water or soda or caffeinated tea? 

That you thought you got rid of but really threw in the sea?

Is sitting there on your very plate

Do you want this to be your grandchildren’s fate?

Please, reuse and recycle that annoying bottle!

Whoever said single-use must be the road to follow?

Because no one wants micro-plastic floating in their sea

Please remember next time you’re thirsty

Rayna Carner is a current freshman at Tulane University planning to major in Environmental Studies. She is from Natick, Massachusetts, and was involved throughout high school in the teen community at Temple Beth Elohim in Wellesley. This summer, Rayna interned at JCAN, creating two infographic guides about how to have a sustainable b’nei mitzvah project and party. 

Earth Etude for Elul 12 - Our Rabbis Teach

by Judith Black

Our rabbis teach us that:

What we feel is our business

What we say can help or hurt

But it is what we do that marks our lives on this earth.

Let us live lightly on this mother planet

Let us treat all living beings with dignity

Let us create nations that honor all their citizens' needs.

Judith Black is an internationally know storyteller and a climate activist. www.storiesalive.com

Earth Etude for Elul 11 - Planting Hope

 by Rabbi Judy Kummer

Hope is planting a tree, knowing that we will be feeding the worms under the tree’s ground before the tree yields fruit....

Hope sees the rays of light in the depth of the dark night.

Hope is an active act of faith, refusing to surrender. 

—Omid Safi

Early in the lockdown — that odd, isolating and scary time filled with unknowns and fears about survival, filled with daily tallies of diagnoses and deaths, filled with terrifying questions about one’s own survival and the survival of everyone one holds dear — I found myself making lists. Now, making lists is a fairly consistent thing I do, and it has helped carry me through some challenging times in my life. If only I can keep on top of the myriad thoughts and tasks running through my mind, says this trope, I can keep a semblance of order and can see my way forward, out of wherever I am. 

Usually my lists are composed of the many, many tasks I have to do — items for work, calls I need to make, errands to take care of, groups to plan for, things to set up or to buy or to get rid of. 

But during the pandemic, my lists were different. Oh, I still had my seemingly-endless lists of things I had to get done, both for work and in my personal life, but during the many weeks of the lockdown I found myself engaged in an entirely parallel effort, an effort that came out of a deep place in my soul. 

Now, my list-making had changed. Now I was noting consciously what was helping me get through that strange and scary time: 

—Tending to gossamer-thin video connections with my loved ones; 

—Furry, warm moments of engaging with my pets; 

—the luck of having purposeful work, and the connections that came along with it; 

—Daily exercise to feel the life-affirming pulsing knocking in my throat;

—the pleasure of favorite books and TV shows and movies, and the spill of laughter from Covid-silliness circulating on the internet;

—Making art, on a daily basis, and savoring beautiful images and soulful poetry;

and in some ways most important in sustaining my soul: planting seeds and watching them grow. 

For years now, I have had a practice of saving the Indian corn from my Sukkot decorations and planting it indoors during Passover, with the hope of transplanting it into my garden in warmer weather to grow my own s’chach for the following Sukkot. I also have a practice of purchasing vegetable and flower seeds and starting them indoors in the spring— even knowing that their survival is not guaranteed.

This year, I was intent on seeing those seedlings thrive and make it successfully into my garden. I made late-night trips to Home Depot and Lowes, when I thought there would be less chance of Covid exposure, and I purchased grow lights and set up a much more careful planting system than in previous years— and the result was a veritable indoor Eden. 

I watched with daily anticipation as the seeds I had planted sprouted and pushed their little noses up through the earth and then grew at a pace that was almost visible to the naked eye. Each day I marveled that my little seedlings had seemingly grown another inch or two since the day before, and they gave me the gift of having something to tend to, closely, lovingly, in that odd time of isolation. Daily, that corner of my dining room grew more lush and green, stems lengthening and vines spilling over to launch themselves into friendly thin air. From the simple actions of basking in warm light and soaking up moisture, my little plants were heading toward being planted in the garden. 

It seems that with filling planting cells with soil and tucking seeds into them and then placing them under grow lights, I was doing more for myself than just growing shoots to fill my vegetable garden. I was, in reality, planting hope. I was planting a vision of a time and a place that would remind me of summers past and would bring me back to a sense of greater normalcy. And in planting those seeds, I was making a declaration: I believe in the power of life and nature and generativity. I was choosing to believe in a future lush with promise, with optimism, with growth, with hope. 

I am glad to be able to report that most of those seedlings made it successfully into my garden and have been rewarding my care with abundant fresh food to nourish the body and also with beauty to nourish the soul.

It seems that while I was the one planting and tending and watering those seedlings, they were providing me with so much more. While I staked their sprawling limbs, they supported me in my faith that good things might lie ahead. 

May we all be blessed with hope for a good future awaiting us. 

Rabbi Judy Kummer is a board-certified chaplain working as Program Leader for the Community Chaplaincy Initiative at Hebrew SeniorLife. She is a contemporary liturgist, composer, hiker, artist and organic gardener. She gardens outside of Boston, MA. 

Earth Etude for Elul 10 - The Dream

 By Nyanna Susan Tobin

The past few years, I have been inspired by R. Katy to write my Elul reflections. This year I find that I am looking backward rather than into my future. As I age, memories seem more in focus than the daily details. I remember as a young woman, I wanted to be a forest ranger. I wanted to care for and protect trees with a passion. My parents and teachers advised me that girls could not be forest rangers. An older relative named Bud told me that Jews could not be forest rangers. My struggles with chemistry led me to believe that I was not smart enough to learn the science of trees. Case closed for fifty years.

I had no Idea that in 2020, I would be working with Joan Maluf and her Old growth Forest Network, looking upward at majestic trunks, exploring for old trees.

The last Friday of May, 2020 was magical. I was walking in an old growth Hemlock forest. Ziggy Dog and two forest folk, one a Botanist, the other a climber/naturalist were my adventure companions. In March I had been recruted by the OGFN, Old Growth Forest Network, to find trees in Eastern Massachusetts that could be documented and possibly protected for family recreation.

For this first foray into the forest, we walked on an even, winding path from 10 am til 2 pm. The cool misty air was a relief from the early heat wave and drought. As Ziggy checked out every root and pine needle, his three two-legged friends gazed skyward. We were gifted with clear views of some of the tallest Hemlocks in Eastern Massachusetts. Then we reached a clearing that showered us with soft, glowing sunlight. As I comprehended the far off tall trunks, they looked like a fleet of sailing ship masts. An old ballad came to mind. In my joy, I sang way out to the fleet:

The men in the forest, they once asked of me.

How many strawberries grow in the blue sea? 

And I asked back of them with a tear in my eye. 

How many dark ships in the forest?

I just had to sing out, and again, as the woods cradled my voice. Like an old lullaby, I remembered my fifty-year-old dream. This year at Elul, I wonder how long must I wait to step into another.

Nyanna Susan Tobin is an Organic Storyteller andTree Advocate. She marches and works for Justice and a sustainable future from her home in Acton, MA.

Earth Etude for Elul 9 - Fear God, Love the Earth

by Andy Oram

The terrifying spread of COVID-19 has also led to a spike in gun sales in the United States, causing an estimated increase of anywhere from 70 percent to 501 percent in different areas. Less notice has been given to bicycle sales, but demand here has also accelerated somewhere between 121 and 700 percent.

A bicycle is an optimistic approach to the pandemic. Perhaps buyers recognize that public transportation is risky and either don't own a car or don't want to burden the streets with one. They may have more leisure time for touring, or may be trying to replace a physical work-out after the closure of their gym. Bicycles show a respect for the Earth, the people in it, and the physical health of the rider.

Gun purchases represent an adaptation as negative as bicycles are positive. I am not opposed to gun purchases in principle: guns can be useful and sometimes necessary. But as a reaction to the pandemic, they are not only irrational but deleterious.

Americans are buying guns out of fear. They tell news sites that they anticipate the collapse of basic civilizational functions such as food supplies. Obviously, they also fear what their neighbors would do in the face of that collapse.

But fear paralyzes. Lurking behind guns, people lose their appreciation for the acts they could take to sustain the structures and systems that in turn sustain them. These structures and systems include the extensive roots of plants, the rich swells of the sea, the swarms of creatures completing the cycle, and the workers who prepare food for consumption. Gun owners may be capable of love for the Earth, but their fear can crowd out this consciousness, leaving only consciousness of the risks they face when life-giving systems fail.

The Jewish tradition has a response to this fear. Kabbalah centers this response on the injunction found throughout Jewish texts to fear God. If we focus all our fear on God, we overcome the everyday fears of hunger, pain, and violence. After all, what is really worth fearing? Shouldn’t we worry more about the potential disappearance of life on Earth than any of our everyday fears?

In short, fear of God frees us from the fears that drive us to irrational and deleterious behavior. Embrace the fear of God and you don't need a gun to fight a virus. With fear of God, you may even learn to love the Earth.

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. His poems have been published in Ají, Arlington Literary Journal, DASH, Genre: Urban Arts, Offcourse, Panoply, Soul-Lit, and Speckled Trout Review.

Earth Etude for Elul 8: Counting the Months: A Reflection on Rosh Hodesh Elul

by Emily Nadel

The skies these nights are dark & bright 

the moon collecting herself

the stars are 

Expansive. 

Elul. [Elul.]

Elul: the month of return. 

Elul: when the goldenrod covers the fields and tall, thin purple flowers line 

                the roads and highways. A couple maples have shown some color — 

                not many, and among all the green the color is calling to those 

                who are listening. 

Elul: A call to see the turning trees. To feel the cooling air, the shorter 

                days. 

Elul, and the New Year is just around the corner, 

and the call of the shofar calls me home

leads me home

builds a home.

We began this time of isolation during the celebration of planting. 

Nissan:     the beginning of longer days and warmer air, 

Pesach:     a new year grounded in home, a holiday for the home, celebrated 

                    in a home I had not left for weeks before, and would not leave 

                    for months after.  In these weeks of isolation, 

Counting the Omer brought meaning to monotonous days, guided me to look 

                    around - to watch the seasons, watch myself, watch our 

                    world change… culminating in 

Shavuout:    a day of revelation. This day of revelation, days after the murder 

                    of George Floyd. This Shvuous, I understood our task to be 

                    hearing the call for justice, and knowing that the call the need - 

                    for justice comes from a place of hurt, hurt with history. 

So the summer months: Sivan, Tammuz, & Av are concerned with history. with hurt. with holding loss & holding love. 

Adina Allen writes [in the Adamah Guide to Jewish Time], “Our task during this month of Elul then is to cultivate light even in the places that feel dark. In so doing we allow for something new to burst forth, a light whose brilliance we have not yet known.” 

This Elul, most places feel dark. 

Interconnected darkness; darkness that feels impenetrable and pervasive. 

Still, we cultivate light. 

We cultivate light - we must - with resiliency, 

       with tenderness, 

       with practices learned and ones developed new for 

                               these times. 

[Elul. Elul. Elul.]

This Elul, I am grateful for my friends the goldenrod and the shofar - 

        grateful for all that is grounding and familiar 

grateful for the call to return, 

    to see ourselves as beloved,

            and to cultivate light amidst all this darkness. 

Emily Nadel is fascinated by human impact and the ways human history is visible in our landscapes and cities. Since graduating from Macalester College with a focus in Jewish history, Emily has canvassed for Planned Parenthood, led the 9th grade unit at Ramah in the Rockies, studied at the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem, and worked as a Teva Educator. You can find Emily exploring a new habitat, reading about eco-Judaism, and seeing what's new in her garden!

Earth Etude for Elul 7 - Tiers of Love

by Rabbi Suri Krieger

Ordained from the pluralistic Academy for Jewish Religion, Suri studied with Reb Zalman  Schachter-Shalomi in the early days of Jewish Renewal. Adjunct professor at Sacred Heart University for 8 years, Suri is currently Spiritual leader of B'nai Or: Jewish Renewal of Greater Boston.

 

Earth Etude for Elul 6 - As Above, So Below

by Deb Nam-Krane

What is the difference between dry, grey soil that’s one step up from clay, not too far removed from dirt, and dark, rich soil that you could grow almost anything in?

The answer, of course, is biodiversity. As above, so below, as they say. The more diverse the plants above ground, the richer the microbial life and the amazing mycorrhizal network (think “plant internet”) that nutrients travel through. Strong networks and vibrant micro-organisms in turn lead to stronger individual plants that are able to, almost miraculously, fight off the pests so many of us dump poisons on, with diminishing returns. (I promise you, this is true, but you have to try it yourself to believe it.)

But...how much biodiversity? Dr. Christine Jones, the eminent Australian soil scientist, has answered this question.Shorter answer: the more, the better. A plot with five species can still fail to thrive, but at twenty-seven you see the kinds of aggregated, chocolate cake-like soil all farmers (and gardeners) dream of. It would seem that the minimum amount of diversity the soil needs is about a dozen species.

As we begin another cycle of demanding equity in this country, I cannot help but be struck by the parallels between ourselves and our plant kingdom cousins. We thrive in diversity along every measure as much as they do, and when we lack it, we are in as much danger of withering away as they are. For us, applications of biocides are the equivalent of racist or otherwise prejudiced policies that artificially prop up some segment of us at the exclusion of all others, including discriminatory lending, race-based exclusion from government programs like the GI bill, or using race and/or socioeconomic status as the primary determinants of what classroom a student is taught in. 

Let’s learn not just from plants and microbes, but from soil. If we want to thrive, we need to bring in as much diversity as we can, both into our communities and into our lives.

Deb Nam-Krane has been an urban gardener and compost enthusiast for over a decade and an activist for over three (somewhere there's WBZ footage of her from 1989 protesting against fur). She is deeply concerned with the connections between climate change, food injustice, and human rights abuses. Deb leads JCAN-MA's Land Use/Soil Carbon team with the goal of educating people about the connections between agriculture and climate change and what they can do right now to help. Since the team’s inception in March of 2020, they have hosted four webinars, a film series on land use solutions, and a class on Trees (two more to come on August 26 and September 2!). She’s excited about the upcoming three-part book discussion series, as well as JCAN-MA’s upcoming Spring 2021 conference. A homeschooling mother of four, she genuinely enjoys working with youth and is constantly looking for ways to authentically bring them into decision-making and leadership roles. Please email deborahnamkrane@gmail.com to find out more.