RJ Blog

by Rabbi Barry Block The disconnect is striking. “The Jewish vote,” we were told last year, is all about support for Israel. But here I am at the Consultation on Conscience.  Israel is on the agenda, to be sure. But it’s a crowded agenda. And our friends in Washington seem to “get” that better than the pre-election press. The Consultation’s keynote was a conversation between Rabbi Rick Jacobs and Ambassador Susan Rice. They talked about Israel. But they also struggled with Sudan and Syria. They emphasized international LGBT human rights. Senators and members of Congress of both parties are poised [...]

‎BBC Travel recently shone the spotlight on Israeli kibbutzim & their evolution over the years. The Reform Movement’s own Kibbutz Lotan, which celebrated its 30th birthday just last week, is highlighted as the “ultimate ‘eco-kibbutz.’” In “Kick Back on a Kibbutz,” BBC reporter Dan Savery Ray writes, The ultimate “eco-kibbutz” is Lotan, situated in the arid Arava desert, 51km north of the Red Sea resort town of Eilat. Guests can sleep in mud houses and learn about permaculture, sustainable building and geodesic domes on a four-week to four-month English-language “Green Apprenticeship”. The kibbutz, set against the backdrop of the red [...]

by Maggie Freed Climate change is the greatest challenge our earth faces—and the longer we wait, the more difficult it will be to turn it around. Scientists agree that we are causing extreme weather by our greenhouse gas emissions, particularly from burning coal. If we don’t get serious about it, island nations will disappear, coastal cities will be inundated, hundred-year storms will occur every 10 or 20 years, droughts and fires will become more frequent and severe, and we will be leaving our children and grandchildren with an unlivable world. Physicians for Social Responsibility warns of the devastating health effects [...]

By Persephone Rivka and Sophie Vener In permaculture, Bill Mollison advises all gardeners and farmers to live in a tent on their land for a year before they start their design for one reason: observation. When immersed in a place, one can best observe important elements such as the amount of rainfall, where the water flows, the minimum and maximum temperatures, how the plants, animals, and humans interact on the site, the wind direction, sun-path and shading, micro-climates and the general topography, the resources on hand, the skills and knowledge of the people present, the physical and fiscal boundaries, and [...]

Turkey pardoning jokes aside, Thanksgiving packs a lot of ethical punches for a secular holiday. First, we have some murmurings of imperialism (more on that tomorrow in Sarah’s post). Add to that the simplified explanation of making peace with our neighbors (sound familiar in this week’s news?) And then on top of that we have food. Food, the supposedly neutral territory. Those glorious eight minutes of silence when the entire bickering extended family stops to inhale their meal. Ask anyone, or read a week of my blogs, and you’ll soon discover that food fuels me, and not just physically. I [...]

They had with them every wild animal according to its kind, all livestock according to their kinds, every creature that moves along the ground according to its kind and every bird according to its kind, everything with wings. Pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life in them came to Noah and entered the ark. -Genesis 7:14-15 Planning a vacation to Crete, we were interested to read in some of the hotel reviews references to the multitude of cats that are ubiquitous and annoying, including in hotel dining rooms. We are looking forward to comparing notes, as every visitor [...]

Two and a half years ago I celebrated Passover in China, attending Seder with Kehillat Beijing, a congregation composed mostly of Jewish expats living and studying in the Chinese capital. Gathered together to retell the exodus of our ancestors, I remember reaching the point in the story where Moses parts the Red Sea to lead the Jews out of Egypt. This is one of the most well-recognized and controversial narratives in the Haggadah. Moses gains control of the sea to lead the Jews to freedom, ultimately causing the death of many Egyptians. His God-given ability to control the sea is [...]

In the 1950’s, Israel’s still-young government decided to drain the beautiful but malarial and ecologically sensitive Huleh Valley.  Experts and environmental activists protested, noting that once dried out, the soil (mostly peat thanks to the abundant wetlands) would not be very fertile, and the whole project may require reversal.  At a key meeting, the Jewish National Fund (JNF) hydrologist banged on the table and said, “Our peat is Zionist peat. Our peat will not do damage.”  (As in every instance where ideology trumps science, the Zionist peat of course proved a huge problem, and the Huleh finally got its needed [...]

God placed in [the heavens] a tent for the sun, who is like a groom coming forth from his chamber, like a hero, eager to run his course. His rising-place is at one end of the heaven, and his circuit reaches the other; nothing escapes his heat. -Psalms 19:5-7 Driving around the country these days, once encounters here and there workers installing charging stands or battery replacement stations for “Better Place,” the electric car project whose primary demonstration site is Israel. Better Place has its headquarters, symbolically, in a converted tank in the decommissioned fuel tank farm at the northern entrance [...]

by Rabbi Joel Mosbacher You shall leave the Peah (corners) of the field– they are for the poor and the stranger among you. (Leviticus 23:33) And though no definite amount is given for Peah, one should not make the Peah less than one-sixtieth of the entire crop. It is all based upon the size of the field, the number of poor who will be collecting it, and the abundance of the crop. (Mishnah Peah 1:2) I love these texts so much; in many ways, I think of them as the Jewish touchstone for our obligation to the less fortunate amongst us. And there’s nothing [...]

Two years from now, we will celebrate the beginning of the Shmittah year, or sabbatical year. Shmittah marks the seventh year in the ancient agricultural cycle, when we are commanded to “release” (the literal Hebraic translation of shmittah) the Earth from human stress. Our land is to lay fallow and any fruits or vegetables that grow are ownerless, open to anyone who needs or wants to eat them. In the new millennium, observing Shmittah is not as simple as it was during the Biblical era. In North America, most of us do not work on farms nor do we have [...]

Yesterday, following weeks of fast-moving wildfires spreading across the state, Governor John Hickenlooper officially lifted the fire ban in Colorado.  Extreme fires have burned throughout Colorado since late June, devastating thousands of acres of land and causing tens of thousands of people to evacuate their homes. At its height, ten major fires were burning throughout the state, marking the worst wildfire season the state has ever seen. The fire ban had applied to open burning, including campfires, warming fires, charcoal grill fires, fused explosives and private use of fireworks. The Governor’s announcement lifting the ban is a sign that the [...]

by Haley Orlofsky It had been a normal day at the Clean Water Network — interns were glued to policy research on their computers, running errands in the Senate office buildings and listening in on conference calls, all while working on the Network’s Twitter campaign to #kickcoalash from the Transportation Bill. Everything was going as planned until something went terribly wrong: The Internet crashed! The other interns and I remained calm at first; however, after countless minutes of trying to repair the situation, we ended up in a tangled mess of wires, forced to come to terms with the alarming [...]

A rabbi and a farmer meet in a coffee shop. Both are named Daniel. The rabbi says to the farmer, “What if we traded jobs for a day?” One year later, they traded jobs, and this is what they learned: Rabbi Daniel: Every day is an adventure for a rabbi! Last week, I ventured out to the ‘hinterland’, north of the city, to an organic farm known as “The Cutting Veg.” Trading jobs with farmer Daniel Hoffman, I was struck by the many parallels between synagogue life and the farming experience. Both professions plant seeds for the next generation. Both [...]