This looks cool
January 20, 2006
Sustainable Energy in Motion Bike Tour of the Portland Peace and Justice Center
113750119932595906
January 17, 2006
Something to look at later
January 17, 2006
But on the endless lists, I noticed this: taxonomy of Jewish pluralism.
Must check that out later.
I am a theory wonk, so anywhere I see words like “taxonomy” – I think, “aha – this is for me!”
But, like most of life, it will have to wait a few hours.
If James Lovelock says so…
January 17, 2006
What a way to start my day!
Independent Online Edition > Commentators
James Lovelock: The Earth is about to catch a morbid fever that may last as long as 100,000 years Each nation must find the best use of its resources to sustain civilisation for as long as they can
And that’s just the beginning! How am I supposed to continue with my work when I read things like this:
By failing to see that the Earth regulates its climate and composition, we have blundered into trying to do it ourselves, acting as if we were in charge. By doing this, we condemn ourselves to the worst form of slavery. If we chose to be the stewards of the Earth, then we are responsible for keeping the atmosphere, the ocean and the land surface right for life. A task we would soon find impossible – and something before we treated Gaia so badly, she had freely done for us.
Lovelock does have some suggestions:
So what should we do? First, we have to keep in mind the awesome pace of change and realise how little time is left to act; and then each community and nation must find the best use of the resources they have to sustain civilisation for as long as they can. Civilisation is energy-intensive and we cannot turn it off without crashing, so we need the security of a powered descent.
But he is incredibly pessimistic:
We will do our best to survive, but sadly I cannot see the United States or the emerging economies of China and India cutting back in time, and they are the main source of emissions. The worst will happen and survivors will have to adapt to a hell of a climate.
Is it any wonder that eco-sensitive people are at a loss how to get by?
As the Talmud says, to what can this be compared?
Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai says: It can be compared to people on a boat. One took out an awl and began boring a hole in the boat beneath his seat. The others said to him, “What are you doing?” He replied, “What do you care? I’m not drilling under your seats, only under mine.” They said: “But you will sink the whole ship, and we will all drown.” (Midrash Vayiqra Rabbah 4)
Unfortunately, it seems that shouting it from the rooftops doesn’t do a whole lot of good. People only seem to respond to that kind of thing when they can see the flames and smell the smoke themselves…
Arlene is my blogging hero!
January 16, 2006
“Don’t hoch me a tchainik,” my grandmother used to say in her fractured Yiddish-English, “Don’t rattle me a teakettle.” But I did and I will, just as long as I can. Paul Goodman was right. The habits of submission and deference are by now deeply ingrained in our society. Yet the cause for foolish optimism is the same: the machinery of democracy, however rusty, still stands; we still have access to uncolonized minds if we so choose. Where there’s life, there’s hope.
I’m also a big fan of Paul Goodman.
Summer Bet Midrash
January 15, 2006
What does Judaism have to say about poverty, homelessness and other issues of social concern? What is the relationship between classical Jewish sources and contemporary ethics? How can a Jewish activist weave together religious and secular wisdom in his/her work as an agent for social change?
A story for the 10th of Tevet
January 11, 2006
The 10th of Tevet fell on Tuesday, January 10 this year. It is a fast day to comemorate the beginning of the Battle for Jerusalem in the time of the First Temple.
I actually fasted the day before, but ate only a little on Tuesday.
In the 1950s, the Chief Rabbis of Israel declared it also as the day to say Kaddish for those who perished in the Shoah, whose Yahrzeit is not known.
Michael Kagan posted this amazing story to a mailing list I subscribe to:
(This story was originally told by by Rabbi Pasach J. Krohn, heard from Rabbi Zvi Teitelbaum, Principal of the Yeshiva of Greater Washington in Silver Spring, Maryland.)
In the summer of 2000, 16-year-old Mordechai Kaler volunteered to help in
the Hebrew Home of Greater Washington in Rockville, MD. One of his responsibilities was to invite the residents to attend the daily services (minyan) in the synagogue on the first floor. Some agreed and others refused, but even those who declined were pleasant about it.There was one man on the second floor, however, who had been
quite nasty and had even cursed another volunteer when he was asked to join the minyan. The volunteer was taken aback by the man’s tirade, so Mordechai undertook the challenge of speaking to the angry gentleman.
Mordechai found the man sitting in a wheelchair in a lounge filled with residents of the home. After introducing himself, Mordechai said softly but firmly, “If you don’t wish to join the services we can respect that, but why should you curse the volunteer? He is here to help and he was just doing his job. “Young man,” the elderly gentleman said sternly, “wheel me to my room. I want to tell you a story.”When they were in the room alone, the old man told his story of horror, pain and sadness. He came from a prominent religious family in Poland and when he was 12 years
old, he and his family were taken to a Nazi concentration camp. They were all killed except for him and his father. In their barracks there was a man who had smuggled in the tefillin shel rosh, the leather black box containing biblical passages worn on the head during morning prayers. Every day the men in the barracks would try to seize an opportunity to put on the religious gear, even for a moment, when there were no Nazi S.S. guards nearby. The men knew that they hadn’t fulfilled the religious duty because they were missing the second part of the tefillin, for the hand, but their love for doing the Creator’s commands compelled them to do whatever they could.The man continued, “But for my father that wasn’t enough. My bar mitzvah was coming up and he wanted that at least on t that day that I wear a complete set of tefillin. He had heard that in a barracks down the road, a man who had been killed had a complete pair of tefillin.
“On the morning of my bar mitzvah, my father, at great risk, went out early to the other barracks to get the tefillin. I was waiting by the window with trepidation. In the distance I could see him rushing to get back. As he came closer I could see that he was carrying something cupped in his hands.
“As he got to the barracks, a Nazi stepped out from behind a tree and shot and killed him right before my eyes! When the Nazi left I ran out and took the pouch of tefillin that lay on the ground next to my father. I managed to hide it.”The old man peered angrily at Mordechai and said vehemently, “How can anyone pray to a G-d Who would kill a boy’s father right in front of him? I can’t!”
The man pointed to the dresser against the wall and said, “Open the top drawer.”
In the drawer Mordechai saw an old black tefillin pouch, crusted from many years of not being used. “Bring me the pouch,” the man ordered. Mordechai complied.
The man opened it and took out an old pair of tefillin. “This is what my father was carrying on that fateful day. I keep it to show people what my father died for, these dirty black boxes and straps. These were the last things I got from my father.”
Mordechai was stunned. He had no words – no comfort to give. He could only pity the poor man who had lived his life in anger, bitterness and sadness. “I’m sorry,” he finally stammered softly. “I didn’t realize.”
Mordechai left the room resolved never to come back to the man again. When he came home that evening, he couldn’t eat or sleep. He returned to the home the next day, but avoided the old man’s room. A few days later, as Mordechai was helping the men who had come to the synagogue, one of the elderly wanted to recite the prayer said on the anniversary of a death, one that required a quorum.
“I have yahrtzeit today and I need to say Kaddish,” the elderly man beseeched. “We only have nine men here today. You think you could get a tenth?”
Mordechai had already made his rounds that morning and had been refused by many of the residents. They were too tired, not interested or half asleep. The only one he hadn’t approached was the old man on the second floor.
Reluctantly and hesitantly he went upstairs. He knew the old man would scold him, but he still had to make an effort. He knocked on the door gently and announced himself.
“It’s you again?” the old man asked. “I’m so sorry to trouble you,” Mordechai said softly, “but there’s a man in synagogue who needs to say Kaddish today. We need you for a minyan. Would you mind coming just this one time?”
The old man looked up at Mordechai and said, “If I come this time, then you’ll leave me alone?”
Mordechai wasn’t expecting that response. “Yes,” he said in a whisper, “I won’t bother you again.” To this day, Mordechai doesn’t know why he then said what he did. It could have infuriated the old man, but for some reason Mordechai blurted out, “Would you like to bring your tefillin?”
Mordechai braced himself for a bitter retort – but instead the man said again,
“If I bring them, will you leave me alone?”“Yes,” Mordechai said, “I will leave you alone.”
“All right,” the man replied, “then wheel me downstairs and make sure that I’m in the back of the synagogue, so I can get out first.”
Mordechai wheeled the old man to the synagogue and brought him to the back. “May I help you?” Mordechai asked as he took the tefillin out of the pouch.
The gentleman put out his left hand. Mordechai helped him put on his tefillin and left the synagogue to do other work.After the services, Mordechai returned and the synagogue was empty – except for the old man. He was still wearing his tefillin and tears were running down his cheeks.
“Shall I get a doctor or a nurse?” Mordechai asked.
The man didn’t answer. Instead he was staring down at the straps of tefillin wrapped on his left arm, caressing them with his right hand and repeating over and over, “Tatte, Tatte [Father, Father], it feels so right.”
The old man then looked up at Mordechai and said, “For the last half hour I’ve felt so connected to my Tatte. I feel as though he has come back to me.”
Mordechai took the man back to his room and as he was about to leave, the old man said, “Please come back for me tomorrow.”
And so every morning Mordechai would go to the second floor and the old man would be waiting for him at the elevator holding his tefillin. Mordechai would wheel him into the synagogue where he would sit in the back wearing his tefillin, holding a siddur (prayer book), absorbed in his thoughts.
One morning Mordechai got off the elevator on the second floor but the man wasn’t there. He hurried to his room, but his bed was empty. Instinctively he became afraid. He ran to the nurses’ station and asked where the gentleman was – and they told him.
He had been rushed to the hospital the previous afternoon and late in the day he had a stroke and died.
A few days later, Mordechai was given an award by the Jewish home for his work as a volunteer. After the ceremonies a woman approached him and thanked him for all he had done for her. Mordechai had no recollection of the woman.
“Excuse me,” Mordechai said, “do I know you?”
“I am the daughter of that man you helped,” she said softly. “He was my father and you did so much for him. You made his last days so comfortable. When he was in the hospital he called me frantically and asked me to bring him his tefillin. He wanted to pray one more time with them. I helped him with his tefillin in the hospital and then he had his stroke.” He died wearing them.
Bound to his Father – in Heaven.
Nature Therapy
January 8, 2006
Nature Therapy Center, Ronen Berger
The Nature Therapy Center
Nature therapy is an interdisciplinary model and approach that combines elements from the fields of therapy, education and ecology and rests upon the relationship and dialogue between man and nature.
Nature therapy is an innovative therapeutic – educational approach taking place in nature. It acts in experiential ways relating to nature not only as a setting or materials provider but, furthermore, as a partner in the process. It is based on the belief that nature engulfs emotional, physical and spiritual resources and that the direct contact and dialogue with it supports healing and well-being. It acts from a ritualistic perspective through therapeutic approach, integrating elements from art therapy, eco-psychology, narrative psychology, Gestalt, adventure therapy and elements from shamanistic rituals. Nature Therapy develops theory and working models which support creative ways of working in the live, open and dynamic spaciousness of nature.
I’m gathering that the possibility of connecting with Ronen from my (other) extreme end of the country is slim, but I admire his work.
Ariel Sharon or John Adams
January 5, 2006
I wish Ariel Sharon a speedy recovery.
His legacy in Israel is already being “Rabinized”, as a friend said this morning. The disengagement will leave a strong mark, almost as strong as Sabra and Shatila. But his influence on politics has been terrible – Israel has become more and more a country governed by men, not by laws.
May G!d grant our leaders the reason to adopt the above quoted wisdom of John Adams, who watched the king of England waver in and out of sanity, and declared that America would never be ruled by absolutism.
Ironically, my daughter is studying for a test this week on the relevant parts of Samuel I – chapters 8 – 12, where Saul is crowned king in spite of Samuel’s warnings.
Science v. Religion?
January 5, 2006
It’s really too bad that this fairly reasonable blog post got such a noisy, attention getting title.
The Blog | Sam Harris: Science Must Destroy Religion | The Huffington Post
Despite the ecumenical efforts of many well-intentioned people, these irreconcilable religious commitments still inspire an appalling amount of human conflict.
and:
Science, in the broadest sense, includes all reasonable claims to knowledge about ourselves and the world.
and even:
Faith is nothing more than the license that religious people give one another to believe such propositions when reasons fail.
but to conclude from that that:
The difference between science and religion is the difference between a willingness to dispassionately consider new evidence and new arguments, and a passionate unwillingness to do so.
Is an act of blatant ignorance as to the place of religion in modern life!
I was amazed and weirded out to read in Ha’aretz on December 21, in Hebrew, a detailed description of the development of the Santa Claus cult around Christmas – a true New York invention, according to Michael Handelzalts, the writer. So once again, like the editor of the New York World, the cry of “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus” must ring out.
Of course Sam Harris is right – there must be a balance. But Religion serves an important function. Speak to a few scientists, Sam, and you’ll discover that they are among the most religious people around – if we can agree that WONDER is the main function served by religion. The second is to say “WE (humans) DON’T KNOW EVERYTHING” – not just don’t, but CAN’T!
This week’s Torah portion tells the story of Joseph’s reconciliation with his brothers, and of Jacob’s settling in Egypt. Reading it in synagogue, we hear Jacob say, essentially, “WOW! My son Joseph still lives? I wish to see him before he dies.” The trope on the word “øá” – that I have translated as “WOW” stretches out the word, emphasizing it. We are drawn in by Jacob’s excitement.
But Jacob is worried about leaving the land he has been promised by G!d. G!d says to him “Don’t worry about going down to Egypt, you will become a great people there. I will go down with you, and I will return with you.” Jacob, an old man, needs reassurance.
That’s the purpose of religion, to reassure and encourage us, to inspire us to wonder, and to help us feel that we are not alone in the world.
