Fledglings

Sarah Saxon is a senior at Roland Park Country School working as a BJEN intern this spring. She authored this guest entry.

This morning I was having a conversation with my friend, and we got to talking about college (We are both High School Seniors). That got me thinking about how humans are some of the only animals that live with their parents for an average of 18-20 years of their lives. Take birds for example: some birds are independent the moment they hatch from their eggs. Even birds with longer fledging periods only stay with their parents for up to 20 months.

So while I was thinking about college and birds and preparation for my future life, I began to also think about progress. I started to wonder: if humans are so well-educated and so well-prepared for our future, and we have the most brain capacity of all the animals on this planet; why do we use the least amount of brain power to do some of the most insignificant things? There are plenty of things that we have accomplished in the history of the human race that we should be proud of. However, there are also plenty of things we have done to be ashamed of.

When I brought this up with my friend, he agreed with me. He said, “Look what humans do. They argue, they hate, and yet, they also have the innate ability to love”. What a contradiction. We constantly argue and fight over this planet and yet we claim that we love it. We destroy the environment while, at the same time, we advocate for it. How can we do all these things at once?

The answer is, it’s easy to have beliefs, but it is so much harder to act on those beliefs. How many people do you know that say they care about energy conservation but won’t even buy just one LED light for their house? So what I think is: if you have a belief, stick to it. An action is less meaningful without a belief behind it. However, if you do care about something greatly, you should act on it.

Speaking of actions, I think I’m going to ask my parents to buy more LED lights for our house.

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.

Legal Stewards of the Land - MD HB 1053 and SB 824

The law is a most conservative body. For example, it will not let me sue you unless I can prove that what you are doing - or planning to do - directly threatens to harm me. In other words, I need standing, locus standi, in order to legally thwart your plans and stand in your way.

That sounds fair, when it comes to the things I want to wear or the religion I choose to believe in.
But what about when it comes to the earth? Can I sue to prevent you from clear-cutting your property even if I live dozens, or hundreds, of miles away? Can I prevent you from burying toxins on your land when I never go near there? Can I prevent you from building in sensitive areas that can destroy fragile ecosystems that I do not own and might never see?

The question boils down to: who owns the earth and its precious resources like land, air, water and who has the right to protect it?

On the one hand, the earth belongs to all of us. What you do there affects me here, and what I do here affects you there. On the other hand, if we all could sue everyone over every act of development, the courts, and our neighborhoods, would be locked in interminable battles. (Though the lawyers among us might be happy.)

There are currently 44 states in the United States that have found a way around this conundrum. They allow certain individuals and organizations to have standing in the state courts to fight against violations of our environmental laws. Maryland is not yet among them. There is, however, a way now to remedy that:

Senate Bill 824 and House Bill 1053: Community Environmental Protection Act of 2009

These bills are currently in their respective Environmental Matters Committees. If passed by both chambers, these bills will allow certain individuals and organizations to be designated as having legal standing to sue in Maryland courts on behalf of the earth, and you and me.

If indeed we believe what we teach, that humans have the obligation to tend well to the earth; and if we wish to act according to what we know, that all the earth is connected and what we do in one place affects the health of people and the ecosystem hundreds even thousands of miles away, then we need these bills. We are the stewards of the earth, and we therefore need the legal standing to be its legal guardians.

This effort is also a Maryland League of Conservation Voters priority. As they say, "We urge Maryland to follow the current national trend and expand a citizen’s right to a day in court."

Please support these bills. Go to www.mdlcv.org to see how you can help.

revolution in time

In his book called, A Revolution in Time, David Landes writes about the impact, and I would add imperialism, even a touch of tyranny, of the household clock. "A chamber clock or watch is something very different [from the public clocks displayed on clocktowers in village squares and official buildings that were only visible when you passed by, and only heard when they chimed at intervals. The household clock, in comparison, provides] an ever visible, ever audible companion and monitor. A turning hand, specifically a minute hand (the hour hand turns so slowly as to seem still), is a measure of time used, time spent, time wasted, time lost. As such it was a prod and key to personal achievement and productivity."

Our lives, our attitudes toward time, and thus toward how we measured, spent and filled or squandered time, changed with this new, quotidian technology of personal clocks. (And all the more so watches. For even if we could not escape the constancy of measuring ourselves against time at home, without a watch, we could hope for a brief reprieve when we were out and about.)

Today, it is almost impossible to imagine living beyond the limits of finely calibrated time. Vacations sometimes allow that - unless of course we are on tours which need to adhere to their schedule; or make appointments or reservations or other commitments that require us to be aware of the time.

Perhaps that is why childhood is so large, so endless. Perhaps it is because children tell time by the sun, by the amount of light left in the day to play outside. Or until they tire and say enough. They are never working toward a pre-determined terminal moment. Adults always measure time, wondering at the start how much time there is until the finish. I remember times as a child playing games or reading or listening to music so intently that I did not notice the passing of time, did not look at a clock to say, only fifteen more minutes until I have to stop. To fill those fifteen minutes without a sense of end, without an awareness of their limitation, made those fifteen minutes part of eternity. To be aware of counting down may make the moments more precious, true, but it also makes them tenser, and shorter.

Almost everything electronic we own today has a clock in it - both those we can see and those we can't. Modernity is swathed in the precision of time-keeping. Technology doesn't just create stuff. It also manufactures culture, and therefore refashions our spirits.

Shabbat and the holidays are the closest things we have today that help us erase the tyranny of timekeeping brought upon us by our brilliance in technology, and return us to the awareness of universal time. (The necessity to run services on schedule is a most unfortunate conundrum that breaks the flow and spirit of these days expansive immersion in time.)

Their imposition on the flow of our work, especially when they fall mid-week, their disruption of our daily routine, and their re-orientating our approach to the ways of timekeeping and the pace and flow of our days, may just be one of their greatest gifts.

Time, and our experience of it, are as much a part of our environment as the trees, the water and the air. While all these things are "out there," independent of us, we experience them through the lens, stuff and attitude of our culture. True, we must choose to use our time well. Both Judaism and modernity call us to do that. But we must also learn to live it deeply, to measure it by the heavens, and not just by the clock. To imagine each moment a member of eternity and not a commodity that comes, and is then consumed.

Paradoxically enough, it is our calendar, the Jewish calendar, that today can best remind us of the timelessness of time. Tomorrow is Sukkot - when we are cast back to the Exodus, the settlement of the land of Israel, the bountiful harvest, the past celebrations of the holiday and the menu planning for our meals this coming week. Time coming together in a moment of eternity, around the dinner table, under the heavens, with the smell of fallen leaves and pine trees filling the air.

Have a joyous sukkot.

Telling the story

"One of the most important needs a comprehensible universe meets is the ability to project the future."

I came across this line in a book by Jeffrey Fager entitled, Land Tenure and the Biblical Jubilee. And suddenly, it all became clear. Sort of. At least some of it did.

Amidst discussions about the origins and meaning of biblical land reform, Fager gives us a refresher course on the necessity of stories. Humans need to make sense of the world, to set all of life's chaotic elements in order, to recall a usable past, and through that, build a vision of an irresistible tomorrow.

"Once a universe is understood, it is possible to know how to live in it because there is a continuity between the descriptive (what is) and the normative (what ought to be)." Bottom line, we cannot live without stories linking what we choose to do today with where we want to be tomorrow.

That is what we seek from our culture. That is what we demand from our religions.

But that is what is so scary about today's non-green behaviors. That is what is so scary about a story captured by the catchy refrain: "Drill, baby, drill". It is a story all about now; it is a story all about me. And it will blithely, crushingly, burden our children of tomorrow

Once upon a time, even as recently as 50 years ago, we had a vision of a future that outlived our meager lives. Time was measured in generations, and generations were measured in decades, not months; success was measured in how much we saved, not spent; our worth was measured by what we gave away, not what we earned; business-folk cared as much about the quality of their product as they did about their stock portfolio.

But with modernity came quarterly earnings reports, global markets, digital clocks. Time was measured in now; eternity is the time between the pressing of the enter button and the repainting of the screen.


Which is to say, we have fallen pray to the moment, the now. Society has failed to give us a vision that can shine past the shelf-life of the food in our refrigerator, much less excite the rest of our tomorrows.

Why not drill now, even though at best it is a quick fix which will leave all humanity in an even deeper hole, with increased environmental, energy and financial distress, but it also eases the tax burden of Alaskan citizens? Why worry now about running out of continental shelves and Alaskan wildlife refuges to dig in and destroy? That is, oh, ten years away. Why not just keep doing what we have always been doing?

Why worry about what happens when we continue to pursue centralized power from materials ripped and sucked and blasted out of the ground, materials that enrich the owners and stakeholders but continue to destabilize the atmosphere and our oceans, and through continued centralization put millions of individuals at risk from hurricanes and other natural disasters, technological glitches and those seeking mischief or destruction?

Why worry about what about green house gas emissions that will continue to degrade our slender slip of breathable atmosphere so that whatever our children seek to do may be for naught anyway for the climate change dice will have been thrown? That is not now.

That is the failure of our current society; the failure to tell us a story about the future that includes the world the day after tomorrow. Especially when that day looks mighty bleak right now.

We used to be able to see further. We used to be able to care more. But the story of buying now and paying later has been so successful. The problem is, few people read far enough to see what happens "later."

The mortgage crisis gives us a glimpse. And with yet another venerable financial firm biting the dust, the sight is far from pretty. Perhaps now we can get people to turn the page and see what later will look in a selfish, "Drill, baby, drill" world. As none other than T. Boone Pickens is telling us: America possesses 3% of the world oil reserves yet uses 25% of the world's oil. You don't have to be a math genius to realize that all the drilling in Alaska and off the coasts will not give us the oil we crave.

It is time for environmentalists, and Jews who care, to speak another story, an irresistible story that we can offer to offset the "Drill here, drill now, no change" narrative. We can't win through lawsuits, or cost savings, or convenience alone. Compelling stories aren't always cheap, and they aren't always convenient. But they fill the soul, and they allow our children to look back, and bless us.

Let's work on crafting, and telling, that story.

the trouble, and promise, of lists

The word “sustainability” is taking root in society. Along with the word "green," it is becoming the official term of art for the cultural transformation we need to survive on this planet. The question is, though, amid its popularity, what does it mean? Or more precisely, what do people think when they hear the word "sustainability"? And what does that predict about our ability to make the societal changes necessary to heal the earth?

Dr. Daniel Sherman, a professor of environmental policy and decision-making at the University of Puget Sound, asked this very question to members of his campus community and came up with a challenging finding. "The dominant association," he writes of the word 'sustainability', "is a list of prescribed practices for [people] to adopt, or feel guilty for failing to adopt."

There is good news here, and not-so-good news. The good news is that people are increasingly convinced that there is a problem and that they can, and should, do something about it. In response, sometimes they do; and sometimes they don't. (Wait. That's still part of the good news.)

The not-so-good news, he suggests, is that this to-do list approach either supplants or defers a deeper understanding of the true meaning. Sustainability does not, after all, mean an isolated list of discrete things to do. It reflects a 360 degree attitude that guides the everyday acts of our lives. It is a belief that we need to use things fairly, wisely and well today so that others can use them fairly, wisely and well tomorrow. To treat sustainability as a list of "shoulds" is imagining it to be so much less than it is.

While not great news, this is not bad news either. For sometimes, lists can transcend themselves. When we begin to learn something, we often begin with lists. As a child we are taught to say thank you, I am sorry, and please in certain situations. But we also learn, as we grow older, that those words are not isolated acts, not numbered items on a limited to-do list of politeness. Rather, they are markers, symbols, of deeper, intersecting values of gratitude, remorse, humility, caring, kindness. What begins with lists can morph into values and beliefs that define our lives. Put another way, over time, we become what we do. And one day, we realize we no longer need to check the list to know how to behave.

Sometimes, though, lists never rise above themselves. They remain external enumerations of things that we might forget if we don’t write them down. In such a case, they never transcend their particularity. They never become more than the things they are. We never see the big picture. They do not change our spirit or the way we choose to live on this earth.

Perhaps what Dr. Sherman's findings are telling us is not that sustainability is misunderstood, but rather that it is in its first stage of absorption. We may in fact be on the way to making the values of sustainability part of our personal and cultural identity. If we successfully make that transformation, we are witnessing the birth of a new era. Let's do it.

Staying at Home V - Homespun Salons

(This is the fifth in a series of the art of staying at home)

Part of the art, and joy, of staying home is that it allows us to discover new ways of being.

Travel, of course, does this effortlessly (as long as we don't thwart it by sealing ourselves up in a tourist's cocoon.) It literally takes us out of our daily habits, our ritual ways of being, our programmed schedules, food and daily interactions . That is part of what makes travel so alluring, and so stressful, all at once. The familiar externalities that hold our identity together are missing when we are abroad. Those being shed, we are freer to explore both the world and ourselves.

But the best staying-at-home experiences can do this too. We just have to plan for it. In fact, there is a gift that home exploration offers that traveling denies us. At home, we can experiment and unveil new parts of ourselves while in the midst and presence of our friends and family. If they are part of this remaking and remodeling of ourselves, they can better accept it, understand it, and support it. With them as our partners in growth, we can more readily be accepted as the new kind of friend, neighbor, citizen, self we want to be.

Being at home without the commitments of work or school allows us to alter our patterns and our expected roles in our community. Vacations gift us not only with the time, but also, should we choose to grasp it, the psychic latitude, to experiment with becoming more of the kind of person we want to be. Even if our designs are not inclined toward change, but rather toward expanding, extending, who we already are, staying at home affords us more time to do that.

One grand extravagance we can give ourselves, and our community of friends, is to become the host for the neighborhood's Salon. (see the Wikipedia entry for more information on the nature, history and role of Jewish women in the salons of Europe.)

The salons of Europe over the past 400 years were breeding grounds for the development of culture, thought and an intoxicating mix of guests. They were places where the narrowed boundaries of art, politics, literature and social class were bravely trespassed in the protective company of a gracious host, the salonierre.

How enchanting to host a salon in one's home. Whether with musicians or poets, artists or politicians, or scientists, or best of all, all of them. Everyone benefits: the community, the guests, the host and, if managed well, the environment.

The collateral benefits of attending to the environment send us back to our roots, to the basics of home, community, appreciation of the homespun entertainment, cultivation of our own talents, and a strengthening of our love of place. It is not only the appreciation of local food that caring for the environment and the high price of fuel are teaching us. It is also the appreciation of community, local talents, a sense of belonging to this place. All it takes to make it happen is for us to make it so.

Staying at Home III - The Trees in my Forest

TWalking back from putting out the trash this beautiful summer morning, I paused more than usual to take a look at my trees. I am getting much better at identifying them through their leaves (although -easy it sounds - I am still struggling a bit). But I wondered if I could identify them by their bark. While there are clear differences with, say, birch trees (that peel), or beech trees (that are smooth), often, bark can look so generic. Still, my tree-identification books assure me it can be done. So every now and then I try.

Today, I paid attention to the stately tulip poplar trees that line my driveway. This tree is native to this area and clearly content to lay down roots and generously populate my woods. That is to say, it is by far the most common tree on my property. When one fell on our house a year or so ago (such is the price we pay to live beneath the protective shade of these modest giants), the tree surgeons told us, in the pauses between the chomping of the chainsaw, that this wood is popular for cabinetry, paneling, siding. You can see why just by looking: when packed together in clusters, they shoot straight up for 100 feet before branching. That's a lot of clean, fine boards.

But what I just noticed today among the specimens that have a bit more space around them, is that their bark shows signs of the tree limbs that grew, and broke off, as the tree aged. Stacked in a line climbing the sides of these trees are faint tracings of arcs, like boarded up gateways of long-ago fairy kingdoms. The mundane, almost bored, familiarity I had been feeling toward my abundance of my American tulip trees transformed into awe at the sight of this cascade of archways.

It reminded me that though we too shed bits of our former selves, they are never fully gone. We carry their tracings as markings upon our souls (and sometimes as scars upon our bodies!), recalling the adventure of our former dreams, or foolishness.

Such is the gift of pausing while Staying at Home. Getting to know (better) the trees and bushes in your yard or neighborhood could be rewarding past-time while you stay at home. Tree and leaf identification books can be found at almost any library. Friends can be an unexpected source of wisdom. So can the internet.

Seeing the variability of the same species can be awesome. When grown in clusters, as we noted, the tulip poplar grows tall and stately with no branches, for almost 100 feet. Yet when standing alone, often as a decorative specimen, its branches can flow down near to the very base. I knew nothing of this until I moved to this house. And even then it has been a slow self-education. (Who knew that the nectar from the flowers of the tulip poplar serve as a major source of honey in the Appalachian area?)

Okay, maybe it is just me. But instead of my trees feeling like strangers, like the neighbors down the block whose names I don't know, the trees are now part of my home. That is a nice reward for staying at home.

The Trees and the Forest

Part of the joy of engaging in environmental work is the extended field of literature it calls me to visit. Today, I am reading Forests: the shadow of civilization by Robert Pogue Harrison.

I was pulled to it for two reasons.

One, I am somewhat ashamed to say, is my small delight in one-word titles. All of my book titles are a bit clumsy and long, with fistfuls of letters and words to get the point across. Books with one word titles like: Wood. Salt. Coal. (all of which I have read) seem to promise a no-nonsense, clear-minded adventure into the arcane history of a most common topic. So it is with Forests. Only, the writing here is somewhat dense and the material handled is high or arcane literature. Not easy going. Still and all, it is a rewarding read.


Two, I am eager to explore the rich use of tree as religious object and image in Judaism - and this was a good start, to get to know how other cultures saw trees and how others writers wrote about those cultures.

Harrison dives deep here and on page 63 mines an essential but unmarketable and largely unnoticed value of forests. Forests are not just a collection of trees. Forests are places where one tree plus one tree plus one tree equals darkness before sunset; limited visibility; a place where one gets turned around; loss of way; strange noises; and dangers of all kinds. Forests are wooded wilderness. As such, they are outside the bounds and the rules of civilization.

As Harrison says: "When we look into the forests... we see a strange reflection of the order to which they remained external. [This means that the forest is like a bizarre mirror, distorting the image of the civilization it bounds.] From this external perspective the institutional world reveals its absurdity, or corruption, or contradictions, or arbitrariness, or even its virtues. But one way or another it [the institutional world] reveals something essential about itself which often remains invisible or inaccessible to the internal perspective."

In other words, we cannot see ourselves clearly unless we look at ourselves through the mirror of a forest. It tosses our ordered world around til the fluff is blown away and the essence all drops to the bottom. We project onto the forest the qualities of civilization we seek to banish, or that we seek but cannot find.

This is a powerful argument for the intangible values of nature. Along with the spiritual healing that we find when following in the trail of a deer, and along with the refuge, solitude and protection we can feel when held snugly in the midst of a wooded thicket, the forests graciously show us for what we really are.

The gifts of nature for us individually and collectively continue to unfold. And my fascination with trees, with knowing them and planting them and experiencing them, just keeps growing. Go ahead, give it a try.

Take a walk in the forest. Plant a tree with your own hands in your yard or apartment. Learn one name of a tree every week. It will do us all good.

Oh, what I neglected to mention in my pre-Shavuot post, is that the rabbis taught us that the health of the upcoming harvest of the trees is determined, judged in its word, on Shavuot. [Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 1:2] Tu B'shvat may be the day all the trees turn one year older. But it is on Shavuot that the trees' produce is judged. Based on what, the mishnah doesn't say.

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 chosen generation

Memorial Day weekend is a good time to think about causes and values that transcend our quotidian lives and that pull us, or compel us, or drag us to engage in Life writ large.

The people we honor and remember today - as we go off to celebrate our group playtime and the beginning of summertime (despite what the calendar and weatherfolks say) - gave their lives both to create and preserve a society that gives us the opportunities and blessings we enjoy today.

We, too, in this interstitial generation, are being called to do remarkable things.

If humankind is lucky, if we do the right thing, the 20th century will go down in history as the one and only era of non-sustainability. It will be studied as a time of great discovery; blind innocence; gaping, gasping degradation; and delayed awakening. Historians and plain folk alike will marvel at our ignorance and impudence, building as if we lived in a one-way, dead-end system, as if we could extract precious resources from the earth, fiddle with them, use them, and throw them away. And that we could, with impunity, casually and blamelessly toss into the ocean, the land, and the air all the gunk and detritus that we spew out when making the marvels of our civilization.

If we are lucky, and do the right thing, all the centuries before us, and all the centuries after us, will model the one true way of being: living well today while enabling our children, and their children, and their children, to live well after us.

We occupy that rare and historic moment in time; we are the chosen generation which has to make this change in vision, value and style. We are in the midst of creating the second industrial revolution, where our energy, our production design, and our waste all are part of the sustainability equation, where the process is as critical as the product.

We - as consumers, scientists, inventors, policy makers, investors - are called to carry our civilization over the revolutionary hump. We must prod and push and celebrate our advances, and we must tend well to those who are displaced, disoriented and otherwise harmed by both society's inactions and actions.

This is grand and unsettling time. But no revolution is easy. We are the founders of the next great society. It is not easy, but it is invigorating, it is necessary and at the end of the day, it is right.

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.

blessing of constancy

I am in West Virginia, on a sudden but modest hill surrounded by two mountain ranges. To get to this cabin you drive west on Route 70, meander a ways, turn off the paved road by the large house forever in the process of construction, rising from the growing graveyard of contrivances that once carried people but now rely on people to carry them, drive a while on dirt and stones until you arrive at the “driveway.” If any regulatory agency set standards for driveways here, this would not be a driveway. But in the wilds of WV, almost anything goes. Still, as citified folk approach, our first thoughts are: Please Gd, let that not be the “driveway.” Then we think: Shouldn’t this thing have a chain-belt to pull me up, kind of like a roller-coaster? The trick is to get a running start so you have enough momentum when the traction gets a little light.

To the east of the house is mountain; to the west of the house is mountain. Sunlight comes here later and leaves earlier than it does for our neighbors on the heights. The view is not much. The house is surrounded by trees, a bit thin in the winter but just the right density in the summer. Still and all, if you want a view, this is not the place to go. It reminds me of the Midwestern quip: An easterner was visiting a stark prairie town, with not a tree in sight. Engaged in conversation with a native plainsman, the easterner, clearly unsettled by the unbroken vastness of the prairie, finally asked: “Don’t you miss trees?” The plainsman snorted: “Trees? Who wants trees? They block the view.”

You either like this cabin or you don’t, depending on whether you think the trees are the view or are blocking the view.

But the real reason I am writing this is to share a quote I read here. I recently bumped into the nature writings of Susan Fenimore Cooper, the daughter of novelist James Fenimore Cooper. She was gentle, easy writer with a love of the out of doors. Her book, Rural Hours, is an accessible naturalist’s diary of the seasons of the year in Cooperstown, NY. She occasionally culls lessons from physical nature to human nature, and sometimes the other way around. The following is an observation that works well in both worlds:

“How pleasant it is to meet the same flowers year after year! If the blossoms were liable to change – if they were to become capricious and irregular – they might excite more surprise, more curiosity, but we should love them less… Whatever your roving fancies may say, there is a virtue in constancy which has a reward above all that fickle change can bestow…” (p. 29)

We love the extraordinary in nature. We travel to see the majesty of Niagara Falls and the Grand Canyon, the stunning beauty of the orchid. But it is the irises that bloom in our garden every spring; the snowfall that cheers us in the midst of winter; the luscious smell of warm summer rains; the knowledge that the seasons will once again come around so that we can plant vegetables and harvest them in due time; watch the flowers bloom and be greeted by the bees and butterflies lured by their fragrance, that calm our restless spirits.

And it is with people as it is with nature. We love the exotic, the glamorous, the new, the extraordinary. But we thrive on the constancy of a mother’s hug, the familiar repertoire of family recipes, the recognition of who sits where, and the anticipation of family traditions. Even as we need change, we need reliability, both in the seasons of nature and the seasons of our lives. But what was once a given is now in jeopardy. There is displacement and disruption in both these realms. The hope is that our work and awareness and skills in one arena will spill over to our work and awareness and skills in the other. Not too far-fetched a hope. And not beyond our the tasks of our daily lives.

why I like my house

In "The Symbolism of Habitat," a book that is both slendor and fascinating (the best of all worlds!), Jay Appleton teaches me why I like my house. Landscapes, he explains, whether natural or built, shape our emotions as well as our space. They entice us or repel us; draw us in or keep us out; enchant us, lure us and scare us, often all at the same time.

Specifically, he speaks of views and symbols that evoke feelings of prospect (the future - with its promises and hopes, and titillation of adventure) and refuge (safety, comfort and the reassurance of home).

As you might imagine, distant horizons, mountain ranges and valleys, even rivers or trails rounding a bend, offer us a sense of prospect. The open space between us and them, the remove from our daily burdens that they suggest, a new world beyond our wildest imagination, invite us, sometimes even taunt us, with their beckoning.

On the other hand, we are drawn to castles. Towers on lofty heights, citadels, peaks, high roofs that stand defiant above the surrounding landscape. They promise physical superiority, strong walls around us, security against an onslaught of attacks from the outside.

Cozy houses capture this sense of safety wrapped up in a nested space. With their well-fitting roofs slung comfortably low on solid foundations, a wreath or knocker on their well-worn doors, they symbolize the place we want to be. (An enchanting treatment of such buildings, and the disappearing community they create, can be found in the charming, little-known book: Passing the Time in Ballymenone, by Henry H. Glassie.)

My house, Appleton led me to understand, has both prospect and refuge built into its silhouette. The entryway, the most vulnerable place in any house, rises 15 feet from floor to roof. I never understood why we needed this height - it certainly makes changing the lightbulbs in the foyer a nuisance. But in view of Appleton's book, I see that it is reminiscent of European castles, citadels on the hill, projecting their impenetrability and might, and protecting those within from unwelcome incursions from without.

And as the entryway swaggers, our rooms embrace. They offer comfort and healing from within. So - we have rooms with low ceilings, echoed in the roof-lines above. Our rooms offer hearthy feelings in earthy tones, with overstuffed chairs that are large enough to curl up in, yet small enough to feel swaddled and cuddled, coddled and protected.

Learning to read the symbolism of the landscape is like learning a second language. Or better, a language we have been speaking all along, without knowing it. Reading landscapes helps us better understand our reactions to the spaces around us, be they streetscapes, malls or the rooms of our own home. And it helps us to better inform our city planners how to build places that nourish our spirits, and strengthen community, in a world where sharing well is becoming increasingly important.

telling time

I did not take my watch to the beach house this winter break. Indeed, I have stopped wearing watches altogether - not because I ignore or disdain or otherwise seek to surmount time. Not at all. But because I could spend my entire discretionary budget on watches - finding them fascinating as I do. I could build an entire wardrobe of watches - with small faces and large faces; simple faces and intricate faces; leather bands, artsy bands, beaded bands. Black bands, red bands, silver bands. I would never know which one to wear when. And then, of course, is the maintenance. They break and cost as much to fix as to purchase. So I leave them, lying there. They stare at me blankly, looking up from my jewelry drawer. Carcasses, bored and stuck. Instruments of movement and eternity frozen in time. How can I not feel slightly guilty?

Anyway, I don't need watches because everywhere I go tells me the time. Everything in the house has a built in LED digital clock display. The cordless phones, the computer I am working on, my cell phone; never mind the decorative clock on my desk. And when I am out of the house, I can read the time on my car radio; my cell phone; office clocks; desk clocks and other people's watches. Truth be told, it is hard not to be aware of the time in most of the places I live my life.

So I did not take a watch to the beach. There used to be two wall clocks at this house, one in the dining room and one in the living room. There was an LED display on the microwave, and several radio clocks in the various bedrooms. As far as moden houses go, this house was clock-poor. Yet, it was sufficient for casual purposes.

But the clock in the dining room stopped working years ago. The Orioles clock in the living room had disappeared. And the LED display on the microwave was broken. I did not have access to the bedrooms that may have had radio clocks; and the one I slept in had none.

I did not have access to my computer. The phones in this house were too old to have time displays (or any displays for that matter). And besides, it was shabbes so I was not going to use the phone.

Bottom line: I had no way to tell time.

Okay, I knew when the sun set, and when it got dark. But after that, all bets were off. Nighttime, especially after sleeping for a while, becomes a jungle of time. How far have I traveled; how far yet to go? Am I rested or still tired? Did I sleep enough or just a little? Is it six hours to sunrise, or one? Am I hungry or do I just want to eat?

We like maps for the same reason we like knowing the time: knowing one's place in the universe is soothing, orienting, offering a semblance of control and knowledge. I was surprised, even so, at how unsettling it was not to know what time it was.

Daybreak offered little respite. It was already light when I woke up in the morning. Was it an hour after sunrise? two? three? It was overcast and raining. I have been coming to this house for over 20 years and I have a good sense of direction - so if I could see the sun, even in the winter months, I could roughly gauge the time of day. No luck here.

At this point, I was getting desperate, a mild case of an addict seeking a fix. Need to know the time. Need to know the time. I felt like tearing apart the house looking for a clock. True, my husband had his watch, but I think he was wearing it. And the room was dark.

And as the anxiety rose, it occurred to me that maybe I should just sit down and take a moment (without knowing which one it was!) and savor this. Perhaps I should sit down, and figure out what this desperation means, and what I can learn from it.

Here I was, on Shabbat, on vacation, in a beach community that was almost deserted. With nothing to do, no obligations, no demands, no work, no nothing. Why couldn't I just sit, or walk, or read or enjoy without knowing what time it was?

Clearly, for better or worse, deliberately and consciously or not, I plan my days according to the time it is now and the time I have left. I measure and weigh: do I do this or that? do I need to rush or take my time? can I allow myself to be distracted or not? Time is less to be experienced than to be filled. Until it runs out.

I cannot say if this is good or bad. I simply offer it as the way it is for me. And either way, it is enlightening for me to know. I think it is instructive for each of us to know how we respond to a timeless day. See if you can set aside a day beginning at evening, not just because that is the way that Jews count time, but because it gives you a whole nighttime to be without clocks (save the passage of the moon, on a clear night).

I plan to try again sometime to go a day without knowing the time. Even if it is in the middle of the night and I don't know if i get up to read whether I will have enough time to go back to sleep or not.

But I am not so certain when that day will be.

two for one

Sharing a home is good for the environment. So say the researchers at Michigan State University. In a study that could be nominated for the Oh Really Awards, we learn that two people living together (in this case, also married), use far fewer resources than two people living apart. Chalk one more up to the benefits of living together. How good it is to have someone to come home, to warm up your bed, to share home-made soup with, to finish off the portion that is too big for you, to vent your frustrations to. People in our homes (as long as they are not threatening or hostile) extend our lives, care for us when we are sick, give us someone besides ourselves to worry and fuss over.

Living together is good for the soul, good for the pocketbook, good for the environment, good to banish loneliness, good for a laugh. Then why, since 2005, are half of American households made up of one person? In the 1950's, according to an editorial in today's Sun paper, 3/4 of all households were headed by married couples. Okay, even I - old-fashioned though I be - am less interested in arguing for the married part than I am rooting for the couple or shared living space part. Being alone is hard for most of us. And even though it has it pleasures of solitude and quiet and freedom in the short term, these can grow heavy in their abundance and relentlessness of living alone.

So why are we such private, alone people? Why do we so cherish or protect our privacy and yet yearn for the hubbub of third places and seek comfort in the company of the vast hordes of cyberspace? Do we not trust each other enough? Are we too self-indulgent? Too demanding? Too unsure?

I, for one, do not know. But I do hope that those who are planning our future pay attention. I hope that future architects and builders and city planners and community activists explore ways to build housing that can both bring people together, and give them their privacy; in ways that enrich their personal lives, and limit their footprint on this grand world of ours. Surely that is not too much to ask.

Hans Jonas

Hans Jonas was a 20th century philosopher who - though little known in the popular American environmentalist movement - is a thinker we would do well to (re)discover.

One powerful quote by Jonas (a Jew, who also was a passionate philosopher who spent some time in Israel after fleeing Germany before WWII and ultimately settling in America) is:

"Act so that the effects of your actions are compatible with the permanence of genuine human life". This is the core of sustainability.

And another:

"It was once religion which threatened us with a last judgment at the end of days. It is now our tortured planet which predicts the arrival of such a day without any heavenly intervention. The late revelation... is the outcry of mute things themselves that we must pull together in curbing our powers over creation, lest we perish together on a wasteland of what was creation."


Haunting.

Some key works:

The Imperative of Responsibility: In Search of Ethics for the Technological Age (1979

The Phenomenon of Life: Toward a Philosophical Biology (1966)

"The Outcry of Mute Things" can be found in Mortality and Morality (1996) pp. 201-202

There is a new book out which traces Jonas' Jewish influences: The Life and Thought of Hans Jonas: Jewish dimensions, by Christian Wiese.

I hope to get the book tomorrow.