Rabbi's Blog

“There are no unsacred places; there are only sacred places and desecrated places.” Says the farmer, poet, environmentalist Wendell Berry.

Our world has seen so many sacred places desecrated; we have seen Black churches burning in the South; ancient religious sites destroyed by the brutal, insane violence of ISIS; the lifeless body of three year old Aylan Kurdi washed up on a Turkish beach; and the hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants displaced from their sacred homelands by horrific wars; so many sacred lives desecrated by gun violence and, of course, we have seen the degradation of our own planet.

In Colorado, we are so blessed to know such sacred spaces on our trails, in the mountains and planes and in our beautiful trees.  Yet, we have also seen nature desecrated by extreme weather, by pollution and deforestation.

Teshuvah, tefillah, tzedakah, repentance, prayer and charity, m’aravim et roah hagezerah, can help us transcend the evil of the decree.  This is the claim of the liturgy we are going to be chanting soon in Mussaf, that the way we live our lives can impact the world around us, including our environment.  Is there an irreversible decree on our planet or can our actions save us?

At the end of May this year, an encyclical letter was published, written by Pope Francis.  In it, he says:

Never have we so hurt and mistreated our common home as we have in the last two hundred years…

our “dominion” over the universe, he continues, should be understood more properly in the sense of responsible stewardship.[94]

I love being out on the trails on my bike in Colorado, and one of the highlights of the two weeks I spend each summer at Camp Ramah of the Rockies is when I get to go mountain biking with some of the older campers in the Buffalo Creek area.  Miles and miles of beautiful single track in a back country wilderness area with no distractions of cell phones.  For emergencies I do carry my cell phone in my camel back, but generally there is no service out there.  One afternoon, however, riding on a section of the Colorado Trail, I did hear the phone ringing, but wasn’t going to stop on the trail to answer it, so I let it ring and forgot about it until much later on when I was with the group of 14 year old boys camping by Wellington Lake.  I listened to the message and heard, “HI, my name is Catherine from the Office of Public Engagement at the White House with some very exciting news.  Please call back as soon as you can.”  I listened to it a couple more times to make sure I had heard it right and after a two day game of phone tag, I finally got to speak to Catherine who told me that I had been selected as a Champion of Change as a faith leader who has been working on climate change.  The event was just a couple of weeks later at the end of July, and now it all feels like a blurry memory or a dream.

There were twelve of us from across the religious spectrum: evangelical, Catholic, Muslim, Hindu and Jewish, divided into two panels; the first on “Greening Communities of Faith,” and the second on “Faith Advocacy for Climate.”  These panels were punctuated by impressive speakers, like Reverend Al Sharpton , Gina McCarthy, leader of the Environmental Protection Agency, senior members of the Obama Administration and White House Staff and a senior representative of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.  We were reminded that climate change has been on this administration’s agenda since the President’s inauguration and that some significant progress has been made, in spite of the polluted political climate on the Hill!  And no, neither the President nor the First Lady were there that day!

Among the honorees was a minister from Hip Hop Ministries and a young Muslim activist, founder of Green Ramadan.  Reverend Lennox Yearwood, dressed in a black suit, dog collar, sneakers and a black baseball cap with the name Eric Garner in bold white letters, powerfully and poetically connected climate change to the Black Lives Matter movement, using Garner’s choked last words “I can’t breathe” to remind us that none of us can breathe toxic air and that 8o per cent of African Americans live within 30 miles of a coal fired power plant, spitting carbon pollution into the air.  It is too easy to dismiss the environmental movement as one of white, middle class privilege in a world where so many issues of human concern compete for our attention; yet, climate change is integrally related to social issues and to global poverty, as the Pope says in that brilliant and moving Encyclical Letter Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home:

49. Today…we have to realize that a true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.

The Pope elaborates this in a powerful section called Integral Ecology, in which he says:

139. It is essential to seek comprehensive solutions which consider the interactions within natural systems themselves and with social systems. We are faced not with two separate crises, one environmental and the other social, but rather with one complex crisis which is both social and environmental. Strategies for a solution demand an integrated approach to combating poverty, restoring dignity to the excluded, and at the same time protecting nature.

I am not going to pretend that I have read the 160 pages of a certain contemporary and very controversial document that has been dividing the Jewish community.  Even if I had, I am sure I would not have understood it enough to have a clear opinion, but I did read every page of the Pope’s encyclical letter and I find it so powerful in its depth of spirituality and its call for action across peoples of faith everywhere.  I am sure that the Pope will be more quoted in High Holiday sermons this year than any other Christian leader in history!  In fact, on Yom Kippur, the Pope will be meeting with President Obama, and addressing Congress and the UN in the days following the holiday. (By the way, I have been wondering what the correct way for a  rabbi to address the Pope on would be Yom Kippur. Of course it is  Good Yontiff Pontiff!  The Pontiff, His Holiness, Pope Francis will be speaking not just for the world’s billion Catholics, but for all of us who care about this planet, our common home, calling us to teshuvah, to return to values of concern, of partnering in responsible stewardship. Pope Francis is expected to direct the world’s attention to the urgency of the upcoming November/December climate summit in Paris. Governments are drafting emissions reductions goals for the coming years, which we hope will be ratified at the Paris summit, continuing the international efforts to reduce harmful greenhouse gases that began at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit and the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.  How can those of us who love our glorious natural world not care about this?  Again, in the Pope’s words:

86. The sun and the moon, the cedar and the little flower, the eagle and the sparrow: the spectacle of their countless diversities and inequalities tells us that no creature is self-sufficient. Creatures exist only in dependence on each other, to complete each other, in the service of each other.

 We need each other so desperately and we need to see ourselves as intimately connected to one, big, fragile eco system whose very existence is under grave threat if we don’t get our act together. Diversity is essential. The rabbis of the Talmud invite us to say 100 blessings a day, offering 100 opportunities to transform a sensory experience into a spiritual adventure, to borrow language from Rabbi Abraham Joshusa Heshel. Blessings over views of mountains, rivers, lakes, animals; blessings over fragrances, thunder, lightning and rainbows. Among the many Jewish blessings is one that says, baruch atah hashem elohaynu melech haolam m’shaneh habriyot, blessed are You God, ruler of the world who makes differences among the creatures.  Although the rabbis instruct us to say this blessing when we see unusual or even ugly animals or people, it is really a blessing over the power and value of diversity, expressed so poignantly in that quote by the Pope.  I see this brachah deeply connected to bio diversity and the notion that the natural world survives and thrives through that biodiversity and permaculture design, not monocultures that bleed the earth dry of nutrients; working in harmony with the earth, rather than plundering it of all its precious resources.  It of course relates to people too, of different cultures, races and faith traditions. We need each other’s nutrients in order to continue life on this planet.  That is why it was so brilliant and such a privilege to be part of this diverse group of faith leaders at the White House, each in our different way trying to make a difference and, as my teacher Reb Zalman who I miss so much, used to say so often, “the only way to get it together is together.”  This iconic phrase is true on so many levels of cooperation, and certainly if we are to save our planet.

Eight years ago, after my last sermon on climate change in this very room, Debbie Garelick approached me about starting Bonai Shalom’s Green Team.  Debbie is also the one who nominated me for the Champion of Change honor. She is one of many people in Bonai and in the greater Boulder community, that I felt so strongly shared that White House honor.  Our synagogue and community have somehow, deserved or not, received national attention because, as far as we know, we were the first synagogue to become zero waste (for which we are in debt to Eric Lombardi, founder of Eco-Cycle). We have a solar powered ner tamid; we partnered with others to create Boulder’s first faith based CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) Program, building amazing relationships between our synagogues, the JCC and Red Wagon Organic Farm to support a more sustainable, local food system; and now, with two churches as well.  We start our Bnei Mitzvah year with a four-day camping trip in Rocky Mountain National Park where we teach about Judaism and the environment and our role in protecting it, learn and recite blessings over nature, and discuss the importance of the food that we eat and its source. Some of us at Bonai were original or early members of the goat and chicken co-ops, now temporarily housed at the back of my house, providing eggs to Bonai Shalom and Boulder proudly boasts the only JCC in the world with a director of farming and sustainability — our very own Becca Weaver, who grew these flowers and accompanied me to the White House along with my 88 year old dad from London and Judith Belasco, head of programming at Hazon, the largest faith-based environmental organization of which I chair the Rabbinical Advisory Board.  The new JCC across the street from us will have a two acre educational farm with greenhouses, animals and more.

A huge aspect of all of this is related to sustainable food and mindful choices about what we eat, which again, some of you may feel is an entitled expression of middle class privilege, but the environmental impact of our food choices, especially meat, is enormous.  We all eat every day.  Some of us, frankly, eat too much, and to be aware of what we consume and how we consume it is vital.  The brachot that are most familiar to us are the blessings we recite before and after eating, such as the one we say over our apples and honey: borei p’ri haaytz, who has created fruit of the tree.  Spiritual acknowledgement of the great abundance is very important, as the Pope says:

227. One expression of this attitude [of presence and attentiveness] is when we stop and give thanks to God before and after meals. I ask all believers to return to this beautiful and meaningful custom. That moment of blessing, however brief, reminds us of our dependence on God for life; it strengthens our feeling of gratitude for the gifts of creation; it acknowledges those who by their labors provide us with these goods; and it reaffirms our solidarity with those in greatest need.

There are people in Jewish communities all over the country doing amazing and impressive work with urban farms and gardens, often donating enormous amounts of produce to food banks and pantries, and passionate Jewish climate activists raising awareness of the devastating impact of climate change, but somehow I got invited to be the Jewish representative that day in Washington DC, and I am deeply aware that I received the honor only on the strength of the incredible partnerships we have here in this community and beyond.

Of course my White House experience was a moment of pride, but  it was also a wakeup call for me to ask: What are we really doing?  What am I really doing to help protect this world in my life of extreme privilege?  “When God completed creation of the world, the Midrash says, God took Adam and Eve, the first human beings, by the hand and showed them every blade of grass, every shrub and flower, tree and fruit and every mammal, reptile, bird and insect and said, ‘take a good look at this world.  Breathe it all in and be sure to take good care of it, because if you don’t no one else will.’”  As Adam and Eve’s descendants, we are not here to exploit and dominate and subjugate, but to protect and sustain this magnificent world.

There are so many ways in which we as individuals and as a community can participate in this work of stewardship.  We have literally just yesterday completed a shmitta year, that mysterious and wonderful seventh year in the Torah, where the Land of Israel rests and we can learn to reassess our relationship to what we produce and what we consume.  Today we start a new, seven year cycle and Jewish communities across the world are asking what they want to look like, what values they want to live out by 2022 when the next cycle ends.  At Bonai, we are revamping our green team to a sustainability group and we are beginning to set some goals.  We are going to green our building as much as we can, explore using more solar and other renewable energy, and  expand our garden and farm projects, including continuing our wonderful relationship with Red Wagon Farm and the CSA. You may have seen 4 raised beds behind my house. Those are the hard work of a few people, including our president, Jeff Davis, and his son, Luka, as part of his Bar Mitzvah project earlier this year. The harvest has yielded enormous amounts of kale, tomatoes, squash and more for our kitchen, lovingly prepared by Ivy, our kitchen Goddess, with a vision is to grow more and more food on our property, to raise more chickens, and to serve only their eggs at Bonai, and to have at least 25% of what we serve and consume at Bonai Shalom be our own produce.  We are applying for a grant to create our first greenhouse for growing food year round and we are even exploring a vision of an aquaponics system to raise our own fish.  Can you imagine Bonai gefilte fish from our own farm?  From the White House to the green house. Pope Francis likes these ideas!

“there is a great variety of small scale food production systems which feed the greater part of the world’s peoples, using a modest amount of land and producing less waste, be it in small agricultural parcels, in orchards and gardens, hunting and wild harvesting or local fishing.”

In our privilege and in our pain, we overconsume drastically.  I certainly do, and it is our greed and the lack of sharing of the world’s resources that not only increase our fossil-fuel addictions, but impacts poverty and hunger throughout the world.  The Pope again:

204. The emptier a person’s heart is, the more he or she needs things to buy, own and consume…Obsession with a consumerist lifestyle, above all when few people are capable of maintaining it, can only lead to violence and mutual destruction…208. If we can overcome individualism, we will truly be able to develop a different lifestyle and bring about significant changes in society.

Who by fire and who by water?  Those terrifying questions in the U’netaneh Tokef prayer of our Mussaf service on these days, seem in part to be describing the catastrophic and random events happening with increasing frequency on our planet as a result of our changing climate.  We know what it is to be a victim of both fires and floods in our community. The scientific evidence is frightening but indisputable:  we are witnessing ice caps melting and coastlines shifting.  Teshuvah, tefillah u’Tzedakah are our in our High Holiday tool kit to change the world.  Teshuvah – we can make real decisions to eat differently and take better care of ourselves and our environment.  Tefillah – we can allow the beauty of nature to be an intrinsic part of our spiritual lives.  Tzedakah – we can donate to our farming projects, to Hazon, to the Sierra Club or the Nature Conservancy.  We can all make changes large and small, which collectively will have an impact. There are simple acts we can do: get free energy audits in our homes and offices; change light bulbs to LED; ride our bike to work, school and shul and take advantage of Bonai’s second bike rack, grow our own food; dry our clothes outside on a sunny day (domestic electric driers consume enormous amounts of energy); find ways to divest from gas and coal or reinvest in renewable energy, join our Tuv Haaretz CSA; support local agriculture; reduce the amount of meat you eat; turn the thermostat down this winter and put on a sweater;  urge Congress to support the EPA’s recently announced Clean Power Plan; and, of course, continue to reuse, recycle and compost as much as we can.

It is so easy to feel disempowered and hopeless and like it is all too late, and even if it isn’t, what can my small act really do?  Our daily liturgy says ham’chadesh b’tuvo b’chol yom ma’aseh bereshit – In God’s goodness, the works of creation are renewed every single day.  On Rosh HaShanah we celebrate the birth of creation, seeing ourselves as partners, co-creators in its renewal and in its survival. This is the season of teshuva, where we embrace the deeply spiritual idea that change really is possible, that the power of love and compassion can subsume the flames of greed, selfishness and judgment.  The Pope’s message to the world is one of hope; that multiple, small, loving gestures can mean so much.  Here is my final quote from the Pope.

211. Reusing something instead of immediately discarding it, when done for the right reasons, can be an act of love which expresses our own dignity. 212. We must not think that these efforts are not going to change the world. They benefit society, often unbeknown to us, for they call forth a goodness which, albeit unseen, inevitably tends to spread.

Olam hesed y’baneh, says Psalm 89, the world will be built through love and kindness.  We can rebuild and repair this world through acts of hesed, for each other, for the millions who suffer through poverty, hunger, alienation, discrimination, be it our persecuted African American brothers and sisters, or the hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants trying to find new homes in Europe and here, and, of course, for our delicate, beautiful, hurting planet. With a shared hope of humanity, and the chutzpah to dream, together we can restore the sacred to that which has been desecrated. Olam hesed y’baneh. My colleague, Rabbi Menachem Creditor, set these words, along with some English ones, to music shortly after 9/11 as a promise to his children.  Olam Hesed Y’baneh.  The words are on the inside cover of your booklets. Let’s sing. Let’s rebuild this world from love starting right now.