Isaiah 66

The haftarah for this past Shabbat was taken from Isaiah, chapter 66. One need go no further than the very first line to be captivated by its poetry and, reading it somewhat midrashically, with its call to live in harmony with the physical world.

The opening verse reads: "Thus says God: The heavens are my Throne and all the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me? What kind of resting-place will you make for me?"

The setting is the end of the first Babylonian exile. The author is experiencing, or anticipating, the Jewish people's return to the land of Israel and the rebuilding of the Temple. This return good indeed, but not good enough. For, as the book of Isaiah tells us, the holiness of theTemple is not found in its stone. The holiness of the Temple resides in the faith and behavior of the people who fill it. After all, God does not need the Temple. God built the universe. The earth - expansive beyond measure to the people of antiquity - is but a footstool to God. The Temple is only valued in so far as it resembles, and calls forth, the goodness of the Jewish people.

God wants us to build a sacred home not for God's sake, but for ours. In the context of the present day, we should read the words "home" and "resting place" as synonyms for all of creation. The verse becomes then not a rhetorical question meaning: "How can you build a home for me when I am the Builder of the ultimate Home? How can a mere earthly home contain the infinite space of Me?"

Rather, the question becomes this: "I reside, as it were, with you here in this universe. We are partners in building this physical world. I have given you the tools and resources to build buildings that honor Me. What will they be like?"

Isaiah acknowledges that while God does not need real buildings, people and civilization do. The question for us is, what makes a building sacred? What makes a building, or more broadly, what makes the built environment and the earth that results from it worthy of being in partnership with God?

Surely it must be something that gives life, that comforts and heals and does not destroy the world or make us ill. Something that is, in today's jargon, sustainable. Isaiah challenges us in God's name to wonder, what kind of world will we make? Would God be proud of the "house" we built?

It is a good question indeed.

a lesson from gathering sticks

The forecast calls for some snow tomorrow, a weak, wispy but just-the-same welcome balm for a snow-starved wintry soul. To build this up to more than its worth, I decided to go out to collect firewood from our yard, tinder and kindling to kick-start the flames in our fireplace. The chore offered both a primal joy and a practical benefit. Regarding the practical, just in case the power goes out, I will have the means to create hungry, crackling fires. Regarding the primal, gathering the fuel to keep one's family warm and dry is a most satisfying nesting and nurturing feeling, and it is a visceral reminder of how dependent we truly are on the stuff that thrives and dies on this earth.

Gathering firewood for need possesses an urgency of its own. The last "storm" that blew through a few weeks ago - a modest event that hardly merited such a grand label - left our neighborhood cold and dark for almost an entire day. Our sole source of heat and hot water was our living room fireplace. As inefficient as fireplaces are for heating large spaces, they are just fine for heating small spaces and a few bodies cuddling up right next to them. Keeping the fire stoked, flaming and hot is a constant pursuit. Knowing all this, I set out to collect the twigs, sticks and limbs that had fallen over the past few months.

As I wandered back and forth across the yard scooping up all that I could find, I thought about all those generations of all the people who relied on this life-and-death task of hide and seek. I only had to/chose to gather wood today. They needed to gather it every day. Would there be enough wood to take them through the winter? Was the wood dry enough to burn well? Was there enough to do the job or would they need to save some for tomorrow?

My yard, I fully realized, was my own, and I was the only one with the legal right to glean the trees' discards for my use. But what about all those millions of people over the years, all over the world, who owned little or no land, who needed to gather their wood from the commons, from forests and woods and meadows that belonged to everyone, or no one? How would wood be fairly apportioned? How could everyone be certain to get enough? Would people rush out every morning, at the earliest light, or the dark of night, and take more than their fair share, fearful lest someone else would rise early to gather more than their fair share? And who would determine how to measure a fair share? Would a lonely widow merit the same as a houseful of kids? What if it downed wood ran out? Would people start chopping down trees? By what right?

All of a sudden, I discovered a deeper understanding of the odd biblical story about the man who gathered wood on Shabbat (Numbers 15:32-36). It is a harsh story, full of questions and unpleasant things. On the second shabbat after the encounter at Mt Sinai, when the Israelites were still camped in the wilderness, a man was discovered out gathering sticks. This was recognized as a violation of the law, but exactly what was to be done about it was unclear. So Moses took the case to God and God said the man should be stoned, by the people of Israel themselves. And so it was.

Among the many details of this perplexing story is the repetition of the words " the whole community." It is stated three times in only four verses. The man was brought before "Moses, Aaron and the whole community" we are told; God said "the whole community should pelt him with stones;" "So the whole community" stoned him to death.

Not a pretty picture. And, to the modern mind, excessive. Indeed, nowhere does it explicitly say in the Bible you may not collect sticks on shabbat. Other shabbat violations do not require death.

Why this harsh punishment here. Why so early on in our experience with commandments? And why did God make the people Israel the executioners? After collecting wood, I think I know.

Gathering wood is not a leisurely or idle task. One does not do it for pleasure. It is purposeful and measured. Like all carbon-based fuel, firewood demands the exclusive one-time use of a commodity that humans do not make, and that is available only in limited and single-use supply. To collect wood on a day when others do not is to unfairly advantage oneself at the expense and to the detriment of everyone else. To choose to do so shows a disregard of the safeguard for all; a preferencing of self above all else and all others; and a selfishness that does not just benefit self but that disadvantages and endangers others.

Firewood is a precious, life-sustaining commodity. Given the human tendency to hoard, to be certain there is enough not just for today but for tomorrow as well, gathering must be a communal (or otherwise managed) affair. If everyone does it together, in the full light of day, each person serves as a check to be certain that everyone is taking and getting their fair share. Honorable behavior is more likely to happen when everyone gathers together. To allow someone to gather alone, when everyone else is prohibited from doing so, threatens the well-being of the entire group.

This one commandment, then, is not narrowly about gathering wood on Shabbat. It holds within it not just the wisdom of setting aside one day to celebrate being instead of doing, purpose instead of productivity. This one commandment also highlights the imperative of communal responsibility, that is, doing right by and caring for the other. It teaches that no one can set their personal greed or appetites or even fears above those of others and above the common good. It teaches us that nature’s gifts belong to us all, and need to be shared by all, both those here today and those who come after us. It teaches all the best lessons of belonging, restraint, and enoughness.

understanding genesis

In less than two weeks, we will be reading Genesis 1, starting again our annual round of sacred storytelling.

Four decades ago, Genesis 1:28 was targeted as a principal cause of the western world's ethic of environmental abuse and resource degradation. This in turn led to hundreds of articles arguing about whether the western environmental ethic can be blamed on biblical religion. The debate continues to this very day. Yet, even assuming that such an interpretation of this verse is technically defensible, that is, that one can literally read those words in a way that gives unbridled license for humanity to use nature as it pleases, there are two significant challenges we can offer: (1) it clearly disregards the rest of the narratives and laws in the Torah that more precisely define the biblical land ethic and biblical economic traditions; (2) and it assigns a level of attention and influence to an otherwise an arcane verse that is enjoyed by almost no other verse in the Bible save, perhaps, the Ten Commandments.

So what is this brouhaha all about? Let's begin with the verse that is at the epicenter of this debate:

[And to the man and woman God said:] "Be fertile and increase, fill the earth and master it; and rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and all the living things that creep on the earth." (Genesis 1:28)

Whatever the origin of the Genesis story, we should take it seriously, for no matter what the "truth" of the events, the story still holds sacred meaning. That is the task of Torah - to provide meaning through law and narrative, its own version of truth.

The question we must ask, then, is: what is this bit of the story, this bit of truth, trying to teach us?

Casting ourselves into the place of the first humans, we can understand why the story has this be God's first communication with humanity. Before we can build civilizations, before we can create a system of justice, before we can design laws of equity, pursue ethics, act fairly, before we could even honor and praise God or see the awe in the world that God created and gave to us, we needed to know that we would be alright. We needed to know we could survive, that our environment was friendly, that we could lay down in peace and rise up in peace; that we could eat and be warm and protected from the things that go bump in the night.

Imagine, then, being plunked down in this gorgeous but foreign, potentially dangerous wilderness. The first thing we would need to do is get the lay of the land; see what it was and what it had to offer, in both blessings and dangers. We would need to find a way to live with, and live from, the wonders and riches and surprises around us. We would need to learn what could we eat, and what we couldn't. We would need to learn how to avoid being eaten, maimed, made sick or otherwise harmed by the elements, vegetation and animals around us. We would need a way to understand and successfully manage the world around us.

That is what we learn from the story: that our ancestors saw the world both potentially as an Eden, full of verdancy and fertility and goodness. And that they saw it as a place of danger and challenge that needed taming for us to survive.

Today, we rarely if ever feel the raw, engulfing, overwhelming power of nature. We rarely are in a place so lost, so helpless, that there is no hope that others will find us. Rarely do we feel the terror of aloneness, just us, our wits and the physical world all around.

Hurricanes, earthquakes, nor'easters, tzunamis are all awesome and devastating episodes of nature. But they are just that: episodes. At most, thank goodness, they happen only now and then (though the "then" seems to be increasing in frequency and vigor given the climate change we are experiencing and creating).

Imagine, though, living in a world where it is all wilderness, all strange, all raw, all engulfing. That is the world that the first humans found themselves in. Even more, that it is the world that the tellers of this tale felt they lived in. To be vulnerable to attack by predatory animals, criminals, illness, infection, a pregnancy gone wrong, mental illness, accidents, drought, floods, fire, heat, cold were everyday fears that defined their lives.

How comforting it must have been to know that from the moment of creation, we have been given the right, the mandate, to control and manage our environment so that we can hedge against being constantly threatened by the whim of nature's harsh indifference.

Genesis 1:28 was not license to ravage the world, but a mandate to understand and manage it well.

Samson Raphael Hirsh, a 19th century rabbinic scholar and populist, reminds us to look at what comes immediately after this command in this chapter of Genesis. Remember that the first man and woman were created on the afternoon of the sixth day of the week of creation. Immediately after creating humanity and charging them with knowing, exploring and managing themselves in this world, God rests. For the man and woman, then, their first day, their first experience of the world was, Shabbat.

What does this teach us? That humanity's first act, first experience, was not to do but to look and see and be with the earth. Before they undertook any act of managing and controlling, they had to experience, and feel a part of, the cycles and rhythms and pulse of the earth.

That is a lesson we need to learn even today.

Birkat Hahammah - Blessing the Sun

On April 8, 2009, something will happen that the world has not seen happen in 28 years: the sun will return to the place of its creation, at the very time of its creation. Or so the rabbis tell us. And the Jewish community will do what it hasn't done in 28 years: gather to bless the anniversary of the birth of the sun.

(For a nice synopsis of this ritual, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birkat_HaHammah)

If you are over 50, you may be wondering why you don't remember this from 27 years ago. That's because this is such a minor event in the Jewish calendar that most people paid it no attention. One tradition even says that if the sky is overcast that day, forget it.

Indeed, the very nature of the celebration is an open question. At minimum, one gets up early in the morning and recites the blessing: Blessed are You our Gd, who fashions Creation. More expansively, one gathers in a group at sunrise and recites a host of prayers culled from Torah, Prophets, Psalms and the siddur.

So, if 27 years ago this was not a big deal, why the blog now?

Because for Birkat Hahammah 2009, the Jewish environmental community is coming together around this rare opportunity to promote both a deep appreciation for the endlessly surprising and expansive wisdom of Judaism AND an awareness of our critical need to move away from fossil fuels and commit ourselves fully to developing alternative energy technologies, led by solar energy.

COEJL - the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life - is coordinating a nationwide effort led by a partnership of Jewish environmental organizations including Kayam Farm at the Pearlstone Conference and Retreat Center (and BJEN) - to promote a year long effort of education, programming and celebration. We are calling this the Year of the Sun, with the highlight being on April 8, 2009.

Part of our celebration will be a Sun Covenant that you, your family, your synagogue or group can sign to commit to making changes that will promote the use alternative energy and limit the use of fossil fuels. This covenant will be posted on a website devoted to this celebration - which will go live around Sukkot. (look for it then: www.blessthesun.org)

Here in Baltimore, BJEN and Kayam Farm are teaming up to create a year-long menu of programs to engage the Baltimore Jewish community.

This confluence of contemporary need (to press the expansion of alternative energy) and a rare Jewish holiday celebrating the sun is extraordinary. Please help us make the most of it - personally, spiritually and politically.

shavuot greens

In Europe, Jews decorated their homes and synagogues with greens in honor of the holiday of Shavuot. They trimmed boughs from the woods and trees around them and strung them from their rafters and railings and walls. Temporarily redolent with nature's sweet rawness, our domesticated places are transformed into outposts of Sinai. The scent of desert blossoms fill the air with subtle smells.

This late and all-but-lost tradition of greening on Shavuot would be most wonderful to recapture today. It helps us break the bifurcation we moderns construct between civilization (our buildings) and nature (the greenery). It helps remind us that religion, spirituality, is often most profoundly experienced in the presence of God's majestic creation. It teaches us that while nature is not God, neither is God found in nature (we are not pagans), nature does serve as a witness, an expression, a demonstration of, and a path to God in this physical world.

And, thus, as we celebrate the place of nature in nurturing the spirit, we become even more motivated to preserve, teach, and appreciate the majesty of creation. So much more would be lost through careless "progress" than the very real losses of biodiversity, potential medicinal discoveries, recreational space, untold resources. What also would be lost would be the power of nature to fire our imagination, to connect us to the boundless vastness beyond all our bounded concerns, to comfort us and calm us in our moments of panic, and to inspire us and connect us to the grand mystery of life and universe.

Shavuot, then, speaks on two eternal realms: Torah and creation. But as the mystics among us would be quick to point out, they are one and the same.

A blessing for turning on the light

I just bumped into Paul Hawken's book, The Ecology of Commerce. And I am just on page 21 - so you may know something about this book that I don't. But I have been struck with the passion, data and hutzpah of the book already.

He takes on the myth of America's business ethic - saying that "The ultimate purpose of business is not, or should not be, simply to make money... The promise of business is to increase the general well-being of humankind through service, a creative invention and ethical philosophy."

That is not the general way we hear people talking about business. Hawken argues that in order to live in a "green" society, we must not only ask how do we save the environment, we must also ask, how do we save business, for it is only when business can thrive while being green will we all prosper.

I will let you now if the book continues to inspire or takes a turn somewhere. But the datum that caused me to write this entry is the following:

According to Hawken, in 1993 - the year the book was written - humankind consumed in ONE DAY the amount of energy it took the young earth 10,000 days to create. That is, in 24 hours, we consume 27 years-worth of converted sunlight. And that was back then. Imagine the rate of consumption now.

No matter how big and how old the earth is, that rate of consumption is clearly way out of whack with a sustainable society.

That's it. I just wanted to share that stunning datum. And suggest:

If we make a blessing every time we eat - thanking God for the energy that has gone into the sowing and growing and harvesting and threshing and kneading and baking, surely there ought to be a blessing every time we turn on the light.

The Seventh Year

This past week's parashah offers one of Torah's most soaring texts on seeking the ideal of political, social and economic equity. And it all focuses on the ownership of land.

It teaches us the humility and freedom of ownerlessness: "When you enter the land that I give you, the land shall observe a sabbath of the Lord. Six years you may sow your field and six years you may prune your vineyard and gather in the yield. But in the seventh year, the land shall have a sabbath of complete rest."

For six years, we can act as if the land is ours; its produce is ours and the wealth and status that it affords us is ours. Such is the concession to our quotidian impulses. But the seventh year, like the seventh day, calls us to transcend coarse reality and enter the realm of the ideal. For in the seventh year, all boundaries fall; all private property reverts to its primordial state: being the possession of God, gifted to all humanity.

That which was ours last year (and will be ours again the following year) is nonetheless not ours this year. It belongs to everyone equally. And we are levelled - socially, economically, and therefore, politically - with everyone else. There can be no hoarding; no merchandising; no lender and no borrower. Everything is shared. It is a return to Eden; to the manna-fed, ownerless existence of the wilderness.

For six years, we live in reality. In the seventh year, we are reminded, through our acts, the opening of all fields, and the sharing of all food that the earth produces on its own accord, of our common humanity. Ideally, we take some of those lessons, those humbling thoughts and feelings, and carry them with us across the threshold from the seventh year, to the return to year one of a new cycle of seven.

Imagine if we applied some of these lessons today. What might that look like?

Perhaps it would mean we would empty out our off-site storage bins every seven years. Fling open the doors and make all our excess available to those who need. Or perhaps it would mean that we didn't buy anything new - except the utmost necessities - in the seventh year. We would manage with last year's wardrobe and shoes and articles and stuff. Perhaps it would mean we set aside a larger portion of our income to do the good work of enabling others to earn a living for themselves.

We are in the midst of the Seventh Year. The count continues to this very day. In the waning months of the year, perhaps we can each imagine a contemporary application of this age-old teaching. And see what it feels like to live a little closer to our ideal.

the image of Gd

Over the holiday of Simhat Torah, I bumped into a simple but extraordinary insight offered by Aviva Zornberg, a textual scholar from Jerusalem who mines the language, images and narrative of the Bible in amazing ways.

She teaches the following about the story of creation:

Humans, she notes, are made in the image of Gd (Genesis 1:26). “At the heart of the word image, tzelem, is the word “tzel," shadow … There is the sense that the human being is a shadow that God casts in the world. One of the primary functions of shadows is to say something about the reality of what is casting a shadow."

Here is what I learn from that: We are the earthly reflection of the divine. Our presence and actions point to the source of our energy and being. And like a shadow, we can be a blessing or a detriment. Shade can serve to offer coolness, comfort, relief and protection; or it can serve to blot out, block out, deprive, steal the light and life from that which it covers.

As humans exercising the powers we possess as the shadows of Gd, which way shall be our legacy on this delicate earth, which we have so unwittingly, yet decisively, damaged?