01/31/2011 JVNA Online Newsletter
Shalom everyone,
This update/Jewish Vegetarians of North America (JVNA) Online Newsletter has the following items:
1. Book Discusses Why the Planet’s Future is at Risk
2. More by Lester Brown on Why the World’s Future is at Risk
3. Veggie Pride Parade 2011 Scheduled
4. Anonymous For Animal Rights, Israel’s Leading Animal Rights Group
5. Global Temperatures Continue to Rise
6. More About the Children’s Book With the Story “Chickenless Soup” Discussed in the Previous JVNA Newsletter
7. Jewish Vegetarian Message Spreading in Spain
8. America’s Dangerous Diet
Some material has been deferred to a later update/newsletter to keep this one from being even longer.
[Materials in brackets like this [ ] within an article or forwarded message are my editorial notes/comments.]
Opinions expressed do not necessarily represent the views of the JVNA, unless otherwise indicated, but may be presented to increase awareness and/or to encourage respectful dialogue. Also, material re conferences, retreats, forums, trips, and other events does not necessarily imply endorsement by JVNA or endorsement of the kashrut, Shabbat observances, or any other Jewish observances, but may be presented for informational purposes. Please use e-mail addresses, telephone numbers, and web sites to get further information about any event that you are interested in. Also, JVNA does not necessarily agree with all positions of groups whose views are included or whose events are announced in this newsletter.
As always, your comments and suggestions are very welcome.
Thanks,
Richard
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1. Book Discusses Why the Planet’s Future is at Risk
"World on the Edge," a Must-Read for 2011
Monday 24 January 2011
by: World Business Academy | Currents In Commerce | Book Review
Lester Brown's World On The Edge: How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse
"We now have an economy that is destroying its natural support systems. … We are liquidating the earth's natural assets to fuel our consumption," Academy Fellow Lester Brown writes in his latest book, World on the Edge, the must-read book of 2011.
He warns: "If we continue with business as usual, civilizational collapse is no longer a matter of whether but when—a time period more likely measured in years than decades." Before offering a road map for change, he tells a gripping tale of converging trends and missed signals.
Brown writes that "the market does many things well," and that no central planner could imagine, much less achieve, the efficiency with which it al locates resources. "But as the world economy expanded some 20-fold over the last century, it has revealed a flaw—a flaw so serious that if it is not corrected it will spell the end of civilization as we know it. The market, which sets prices, is not telling us the truth. It is omitting indirect costs that in some cases now dwarf direct costs."
He asks: "How can we assume that the growth of an economic system that is shrinking the earth's forests, eroding its soils, depleting its aquifers, collapsing its fisheries, elevating its temperature, and melting its ice sheets can simply be projected into the long-term future? What is the intellectual process underpinning these extrapolations?"
He compares the situation in economics today to that in astronomy when Copernicus arrived on the scene and had to marshal observations and mathematical calculations to dispel the notion that the sun revolved around the earth. We need "a new economic worldview based on several decades of environmental observations and analysis."
Brown states that the "key to restructuring the economy is to get the market to tell the truth through full-cost pricing…. If we can create an honest market, then market forces will rapidly restructure the world energy economy."
Throughout the book, Brown marshals a chilling array of facts to document "the ongoing liquidation of the earth's natural assets. Among the most chilling parts of the book is his graphic description of how the world is hitting peak water.
"Melting glaciers coupled with the depletion of aquifers present the most massive threat to food security the world has ever faced." Half the world's people live in the 20-some countries where water tables are falling as aquifers are being depleted. China, India, and the U.S., which together produce half the world's grain, are in this group of 20.
"Water-based 'food bubbles' that artificially inflate grain production by depleting aquifers are starting to burst, and as they do, irrigation-based harvests are shrinking." Soil erosion, the diversion of irrigation water to cities, the diversion of grain harvests to biofuels, more frequent crop-shrinking heat waves, and population growth all are compounding the problem, making food the "weak link in our 21st century civilization."
As part of the new geopolitics of food scarcity, numerous countries, led by Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and China, are leasing and buying up land (and therefore water) in Africa, Latin America, and elsewhere. Other buyers include India, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Libya, Qatar, and Bahrain. The details show the enormity of the implications.
One of the two policy cornerstones of Brown's roadmap for ending this crisis ("Plan B") is to restructure taxes by lowering income taxes and raising the tax on carbon emissions to include the indirect costs of burning fossil fuels.
Brown ends with a call to action, saying that lifestyle changes won't be enough. "Restructuring the global economy means becoming politically active…. The choice is ours—yours and mine. We can stay with business as usual and preside over an economy that continues to destroy its natural support systems until it destroys itself, or we can be the generation that changes direction, moving the world onto a path of sustained progress. The choice will be made by our generation, but it will affect life on earth for all generations to come."
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2. More by Lester Brown on Why the World’s Future is at Risk
ENVIRONMENT
Future At Risk
http://ynative77.wordpress.com/2011/01/21/environmentfuture-at-risk/
Posted on 01/21/2011 by Nativegrl77 (based on book by Lester Brown World on the Edge
The first decade of the twenty-first century ended with the hottest and wettest year in recorded history, which also saw an extraordinary level of climate disasters like the catastrophic heat wave in Russia and the floods in Pakistan. This young year is already continuing the misery. Record-hot seas, warmed by billions of tons of greenhouse pollution from the burning of fossil fuels, are fueling catastrophic floods and storms around the planet. Global food and energy prices are rising as nations overwhelmed by disasters struggle with production, which threatens our economic recovery. In the United States, the blazing summer of 2010 is being followed by a harsh winter of extremes: record snowfalls, disastrous flooding, and record heat waves.
Climate scientists first warned policymakers of the harsh consequences of dependence on the unconstrained abuse of coal and oil in the 1950s and 1960s, forecasting a future which is now our generation's reality. “The 2010 data confirm the Earth’s significant long-term warming trend,” confirmed the World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General Michel Jarraud. “The ten warmest years on record have all occurred since 1998.” With unabated pollution, climate disasters are poised to reach unimaginable levels of devastation in the coming years. The political climate in Washington, DC is not any brighter, as polluters have taken over the halls of Congress.
Lobbyists for carbon pollution interests have set up shop in the U.S. House of Representatives, and the Republican Party is dominated by politicians who paint global warming as a scientific conspiracy. Some Democrats have joined the Republican assault on President Barack Obama's efforts to turn back carbon pollution, arguing that the only way to preserve the American dream is to leave the coal and oil industries in control of our nation's energy destiny.
GLOBAL FLOODS: On Sunday, Pope Benedict XVI offered prayers for the international victims of catastrophic flooding. Australia is facing a "disaster of biblical proportions" after weeks of rain. "The extent of flooding being experienced by Queensland is unprecedented and requires a national and united response," Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said. "Dozens of towns have been isolated or partially submerged” by Australia's extraordinary floods, which have killed at least 20 people and are now "flushing toxic, pesticide-laden sediment into the Great Barrier Reef, and could threaten fragile corals and marine life in the world’s largest living organism." The disaster "is costing Australia at least $3 billion in lost farming and coal exports." Elsewhere, extraordinary rains "have triggered widespread floods and mudslides" in Sri Lanka, killing 43 people and affecting millions more, prompting the United Nation to make a $51 million appeal for help.
With heavy rains across southern Africa, "over 50 people have died in floods in South Africa and neighbouring Mozambique," and "Zimbabwean authorities have issued flood warnings for points in the south and west of the country." Continuous rains in the Philippines have killed at least 56 people and left hundreds of thousands of people "reeling." Extreme rains have caused “the worst natural disaster to hit Brazil in four decades," where the "death toll from flooding and mudslides near Rio de Janeiro" could approach 1,000 victims. "Heavy snow and rain in the U.S. Midwest" likely means record springtime floods. “Changes in Iowa’s weather patterns, landscape, cities and farms have rendered some of the state’s most trusted flood prevention safeguards outmoded and inadequate,” a review by The Des Moines Register shows. "This is no longer something that’s theory or conjecture or something that comes out of computer models," Dr. Richard Somerville, the Nobel-winning scientist who led the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report on the state of climate science in 2007, explained to ABC News. "We’re observing the climate changing. It’s real. It’s happening. It’s scientific fact."
POLLUTER TAKEOVER: The Republican surge into the halls of Congress during the 2010 elections was bankrolled by millions from right-wing coal and oil polluters like Koch Industries and Tesoro Oil that now expect a return on the investment. Conservatives have announced an ambitious agenda of deregulating the pollution that is killing Americans and threatening the planet. The incoming Republican chairs of crucial committees in the House of Representatives opposed the climate legislation supported by President Barack Obama, and now oppose limits on global warming pollution under the Clean Air Act. Their attack on public health is being led by Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), once considered a “moderate on environmental issues,” but who has since worked hard to refashion himself as a hard-right defender of pollution as the incoming chairman of the House energy committee. To run his committee, Upton hired a slew of lobbyists, whose client rolls include fossil fuel interests and environmental criminals.
These ex-lobbyists "met in a closed-door session Tuesday with energy industry interests to work on strategy to handcuff the Obama administration’s climate change agenda,” Politico reports. In the Senate, Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) "will introduce sweeping legislation later this month to block the Obama administration and states from imposing climate rules." Also, "[a]t least 56 senators -- just four short of the 60 needed to overcome a filibuster -- will most likely support measures to hamstring climate rules, and an additional eight votes may be in play this Congress." Texas oil company Tesoro has launched a new campaign to vilify the Environmental Protection Agency's pollution rules as a "regulatory blizzard" and an "avalanche of regulations that will wipe out jobs." This attack on the EPA is being joined by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Farm Bureau, the American Petroleum Institute, Koch's Americans for Prosperity, and dozens of other right-wing front groups.
FIGHTING FOR THE FUTURE: Leadership that serves the American people and addresses climate change has not been abandoned entirely, however. "How many times do we have to be smacked in the face with factual evidence before we address global climate change? Report after report keep confirming it's getting worse every year," said Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) last week. The bipartisan presidential oil spill commission rebuked the "compromised" American Petroleum Insitute for being both the industry's standard-setter and political lobbyist. Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) is combatting the Republican agenda of "taxpayer subsidies for big polluters, less oversight of oil refineries and drilling rigs, and less protections for our health." Activists across the country are defending their air and water against newly elected Tea Party politicians.
Climate scientists are fighting back as well, telling "Republican politicians to stop beating up on science and scientists." Thanks to the Recovery Act, Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced yesterday that more than 300,000 low-income homes have been weatherized. High-quality clean energy technologies, he stressed, are the "road to wealth creation in the United States." At a joint news conference with Chinese President Hu Jintao, President Barack Obama said the two countries -- the world's largest energy consumers and greenhouse polluters -- "have a responsibility to combat climate change … and showing the way to a clean energy future." Looking forward, Center for American Progress Senior Fellow Daniel Weiss writes that the State of the Union address next week "presents a golden opportunity for the president to contrast conservative opposition with his reaffirmation of the nation’s commitment to a clean energy future."
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3. Veggie Pride Parade 2011 Scheduled
On Jan 24, 2011, at 8:16 AM, Pamela Rice wrote:
The City has confirmed our date:
Next Veggie Pride Parade NYC,
date CONFIRMED:
Sunday, May 15, 2011
More detailed info...to come.
http://www.veggieprideparade.org/
--Pamela Rice, organizer
My Message to Pamela Rice:
Kudos, Pamela, for your continued great efforts.
You have really got this parade to be a regular, important event.
I wonder about the possibility of something new this year to get greater media attention.
Possibilities:
* Get a superstar speaker like John Robbins, the UN Secretary General Moon, Chelsea Clinton, a Hollywood celebrity, Congressman Dennis Kucinich, Bill Clinton, ...
* End with a major demonstration at the UN, with a demand that the UN promote plant-based diets to avoid the impending climate crisis.
* Stress that a major societal shift to plant-based diets is essential to avoid a climate catastrophe.
* Other ideas?
Of course, I plan to help promote the event through JVNA newsletters and in other ways.
All the best,
Richard
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4. Anonymous For Animal Rights, Israel’s Leading Animal Rights Group
http://www.anonymous.org.il/english.htm
Anonymous for Animal Rights
Material from their web site:
Anonymous for Animal Rights is Israel's leading animal rights group. We chose the name "Anonymous" out of deep solidarity with the suffering of those sentient beings, without name or identity, known to us only in their unimaginable numbers, who are subjected to systematic abuse. They are imprisoned in laboratories, circuses, municipal pounds - but above all: in factory farms. They are all anonymous. They all need our help.
We believe that other animals are not but means in the hands of humans to serve us as food, clothing, entertainment or subjects for research. Our treatment of other animals should be governed by compassion and by equal respect of their needs and interests. Anything less than that would qualify as a type of racism. Real change in the fate of non-human animals can only happen if we adopt a more considerate and cruelty free lifestyle.
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5. Global Temperatures Continue to Rise
Eco-Economy Indicators
Global Temperature
JANUARY 18, 2011
2010 Hits Top of Temperature Chart
http://www.earth-policy.org/indicators/C51/temperature_2011
Alexandra Giese
Topping off the warmest decade in history, 2010 experienced a global average temperature of 14.63 degrees Celsius (58.3 degrees Fahrenheit), tying 2005 as the hottest year in 131 years of recordkeeping.
This news will come as no surprise to residents of the 19 countries that experienced record heat in 2010. Belarus set a record of 38.7 degrees Celsius (101.7 degrees Fahrenheit) on August 6 and then broke it by 0.2 degrees Celsius just one day later. A 47.2-degree Celsius (117.0-degree Fahrenheit) spike in Burma set a record for Southeast Asia as a whole. And on May 26, 2010, the ancient city of Mohenjo-daro in Pakistan hit 53.5 degrees Celsius (128.3 degrees Fahrenheit)—a record not only for the country but for all of Asia. In fact, it was the fourth hottest temperature ever recorded anywhere.
The earth’s temperature is not only rising, it is rising at an increasing rate. From 1880 through 1970, the global average temperature increased roughly 0.03 degrees Celsius each decade. Since 1970, that pace has increased dramatically, to 0.13 degrees Celsius per decade. Two thirds of the increase of nearly 0.8 degrees Celsius (1.4 degrees Fahrenheit) in the global temperature since the 1880s has occurred in the last 40 years. And 9 of the 10 warmest years happened in the last decade.
Global temperature is influenced by a number of factors, some natural and some due to human activities. A phenomenon known as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation is characterized by extremes in Pacific Ocean temperatures and shifts in atmospheric patterns. The cycle involves opposite phases, both of which have global impacts. The El Niño phase typically raises the global average temperature, while its counterpart, La Niña, tends to depress it. Temperature variations are also partly determined by solar cycles. Because we are close to a minimum in solar irradiance (how much energy the earth receives from the sun) and entered a La Niña episode in the second half of 2010, we would expect a cooler year than normal—making 2010’s record temperature even more remarkable.
Since the Industrial Revolution, emissions from human activities of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide have driven the earth’s climate system dangerously outside of its normal range. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have risen nearly 40 percent, from 280 parts per million (ppm) to almost 390 ppm. As the atmosphere becomes increasingly overloaded with heat-trapping gases, the earth’s temperature continues to rise.
Even seemingly small changes in global temperature have far-reaching effects on sea level, atmospheric circulation, and weather patterns around the globe. Climate scientists note that increases in both the frequency and severity of extreme weather events are characteristics of a hotter climate. In 2010, the heat wave in Russia, fires in Israel, flooding in Pakistan and Australia, landslides in China, record snowfall across the mid-Atlantic region of the United States, and 12 Atlantic Ocean hurricanes were among the extreme weather events. The human cost of these events was not small: the Russian heat wave and forest fires claimed 56,000 lives, while the Pakistan floods took 1,760.
Although the weather of 2010 seems extreme compared with that of earlier years, scientists warn that such patterns could become more common in the near future. And while no single event can be attributed directly to climate change, NASA climate scientist James Hansen notes that the extreme weather of 2010 would “almost certainly not” have occurred in the absence of excessive greenhouse gas emissions. Warmer air holds more water vapor, and that extra moisture leads to heavier storms. At the same time that precipitation events are becoming larger in some areas, climate change causes more intense and prolonged droughts in others. By some estimates, droughts could be up to 10 times as severe by the end of the century. Like a growing number of extreme weather events, an increase in the number of record-high temperatures—and a concomitant decrease in the number of record lows—is characteristic of a warming world. For instance, while 19 countries recorded record highs in 2010, not one witnessed a record low temperature. Across the United States, weather station data reveal that daily maximum temperature records outnumbered minimum temperature records for nine months of 2010. Over the last decade, record highs were more than twice as common as record lows, whereas half a century ago there was a roughly equal probability of experiencing either of these.
Temperatures are rising faster in some places than in others. The Arctic has warmed by as much as 3–4 degrees Celsius (5–7 degrees Fahrenheit) since the 1950s. It is heating up at twice the rate of the earth on average, making it the fastest-warming region on the planet. Disproportionately large warming in the Arctic is partially due to the albedo effect. As sea ice melts, darker ocean water is exposed; the additional energy absorbed by the darker surface then melts more ice, setting in motion a self-reinforcing feedback.
In 2010, Arctic sea ice shrank to its third-lowest extent on record, after 2007 and 2008, and also reached what was likely its lowest volume in thousands of years. At both poles, the great ice sheets are showing worrying signs: recent calculations reveal that Greenland is losing more than 250 billion tons of water per year, and 87 percent of marine glaciers on the Antarctic Peninsula have retreated since the 1940s. There is enough water frozen in Greenland and Antarctica to raise global sea levels by over 70 meters (230 feet) if they were to melt entirely.
Unless global temperatures are stabilized, higher seas from melting ice sheets and mountain glaciers, combined with the heat-driven expansion of ocean water itself, will eventually lead to the displacement of millions of people as low-lying coastal areas and island nations are inundated. Sea level rise has been minimal so far, with a global average of 17 centimeters (6 inches) during the last century. But the rate of the rise is accelerating, and some scientists maintain that a rise as high as 2 meters (6 feet) is possible before this century’s end.
It is not only coastal populations that are threatened by rising global temperatures. Higher temperatures reduce crop yields and water supplies, affecting food security worldwide. Agricultural scientists have drawn a correlation between a temperature rise of 1 degree Celsius above the optimum during the growing season and a grain yield decrease of 10 percent. Heat waves and droughts can also cause drastic cuts in harvests. Mountain glaciers, which are shrinking worldwide as a result of rising temperatures, supply drinking and irrigation water to much of the world’s population, including hundreds of millions in Asia. More than any natural variations, carbon emissions from human activities will determine the future trajectory of the earth’s temperature and thus the frequency of extreme weather events, the rise in sea level, and the state of food security. The 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projected that the earth would warm 1.1–6.4 degrees Celsius (2–11 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century. Yet a rise of 2–3 degrees Celsius will make the earth as hot as it was 3 million years ago, when oceans were more than 25 meters (80 feet) higher than they are today. Subsequent research has projected an even larger rise—up to 7.4 degrees Celsius–-if the world continues to depend on a fossil-fuel-based energy system. But we can create a different future by turning to a new path—one with carbon-free energy sources, restructured transportation, and increased efficiency. By dramatically reducing emissions, we could halt the rapid rise of the earth’s temperature.
Copyright © 2011 Earth Policy Institute
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6. More About the Children’s Book With the Story “Chickenless Soup” Discussed in the Previous JVNA Newsletter
The name of the book is Where the Shouting Began
Forwarded message from author Steven Sher:
Dear Richard,
Thanks for the mention of the book in JVNA. People can order the book directly from the publisher, Montemayor Press, via montemayorpress.com or, if they are curious about my work, then they should check out my website (stevensher.net), which includes a couple of links to Montemayor Press. I appreciate it. My best, Steve
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7. Jewish Vegetarian Message Spreading in Spain
Forwarded message that was sent to me:
Thank you for a great resource site like this, I would like to share the information with the people of my havurah (it is a small non-denominational group in Barcelona, Spain), is it OK if we have your Online Course translated into Spanish and distributed among our members?
Best regards,
Paul
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8. America’s Dangerous Diet
http://www.care2.com/causes/real-food/blog/americas-dangerous-diet/
In spite of all the recent efforts, people are eating less fits and vegetables and more meats than ever.
Thanks to author, educator and JVNA advisor Dan Brook for forwarding this link to us.
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January 31, 2010
January 10, 2010
1/10/2010 JVNA Online Newsletter
Shalom everyone,
This update/Jewish Vegetarians of North America (JVNA) Online Newsletter has the following items:
1. Strategy Ideas For 2010
2. Turning Tu B’Shvat into an Environmental Shabbat
3. A Climate Panic in the World’s Future?
4. Blog Considers Blessings of Animals Ceremonies in Jewish Settings
5. A World Day For the Abolition of Meat Consumption?
6. Web Site Gives Links to Many Valuable Vegetarian Sites
7. Kosher Slaughterhouse Shut Down
8. Petition Asks President Obama to Give Up Eating Meat
9. Campaign to Get Climate Experts to Promote Veg Diets as a Response to Climate Change
10. Vegan Foods for Pets?
11. “We Are All One,” A Wonderful Environmental Message
12. Tu B’Shvat-Related Message From the Shalom Center
13. Debate on Eating Meat (or Not) at the Hazon Web Site
14. Update and Recent Comments on World Watch Article That Argues that Livestock Sector Causes At Least 51% of Human-Caused Greenhouse Gas Emissions
15. Getting Veg Info Into a Worldwide Travel Guide
Some material has been deferred to a later update/newsletter to keep this one from being even longer.
[Materials in brackets like this [ ] within an article or forwarded message are my editorial notes/comments.]
Opinions expressed do not necessarily represent the views of the JVNA, unless otherwise indicated, but may be presented to increase awareness and/or to encourage respectful dialogue. Also, material re conferences, retreats, forums, trips, and other events does not necessarily imply endorsement by JVNA or endorsement of the kashrut, Shabbat observances, or any other Jewish observances, but may be presented for informational purposes. Please use e-mail addresses, telephone numbers, and web sites to get further information about any event that you are interested in. Also, JVNA does not necessarily agree with all positions of groups whose views are included or whose events are announced in this newsletter.
As always, your comments and suggestions are very welcome.
Thanks,
Richard
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1. Strategy Ideas For 2010
At the start of a new year and a new decade, we should recognize that we have accomplished much, but still have a long way to go to change people’s perceptions and get vegetarianism onto society’s agenda.
Here are some thoughts re effective outreach efforts: Stress that (1) the world is rapidly approaching an unprecedented catastrophe, (2) some climate experts are warning that global warming may soon reach a tipping point and spiral out of control, and (3) a major societal shift to plant-based diets is essential to provide even the possibility of avoiding the impending climate catastrophe.
* Take advantage of the many opportunities provided by newspaper articles on health, the environment, the treatment of animals, climate change, scarce resources, etc., to write letters to editors that stress how a shift to veg diets would improve conditions.
* Consider that you should take responsibility to do all that you can to help avoid a disaster due to climate change. Speak to everyone you can, especially rabbis and other religious leaders, educators, environmentalists, animal rights activists, etc., to increase awareness of the issues, and the urgency of shifts to plant-based diets.
* Respectfully challenge rabbis and other religious leaders to apply religious values to their diets and speak out on the issues.
* Stress that then production and consumption of meat and other animal products violate basic Jewish teachings on taking care of our health, treating animals with compassion, protecting the environment, conserving natural resources and helping hungry people.
* Let people know that they can see our acclaimed, award-winning documentary “A Sacred Duty: Applying Jewish Values to Help Heal the World” at www.ASacredDuty.com, and that at this web site, people can also read blurbs and reviews and questions and answers and request a complimentary DVD.
Please send me suggestions for additional strategy ideas. Thanks.
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2. Turning Tu B’Shvat into an Environmental Shabbat
Recently a special JVNA newsletter with a press release, several articles and lists of Tu B’Shvat-related resources was sent to you. Please use this material to help plan Tu B’Shvat seders and other events in your community. Please share materials with local rabbis, Jewish educators and others who might be interested. Also, please see my two Tu B’Shvat-related articles in the festivals section at JewishVeg.com/Schwartz, and use them for creating letters to editors and talking points. Thanks.
Please visit the following web site to hear JVNA advisor Catherine Manna read my article, “Turning Tu B’Shvat into an Environmental Shabbat.” Thanks, Catherine.
http://media11.podbean.com/pb/82022b5dbe5b610af0e1727e768c5eae/4b493f8f/blogs11/216428/uploads/TurningTuBShvatintoanEnvironme.m4a
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3. A Climate Panic in the World’s Future?
The coming climate panic?
BY AUDEN SCHENDLER, MARK TREXLER
http://www.grist.org/article/2009-12-23-the-coming-climate-panic
One morning in the not too distant future, you might wake up and walk to your mailbox. The newspaper is in there and it’s covered with shocking headlines: Coal Plants Shut Down! Airline Travel Down 50 Percent! New Federal Carbon Restrictions in Place! Governor Kicked Out of Office for Climate Indolence!
Sometimes change is abrupt and unsettling. History shows that societies in crisis too often leap from calm reaction to outright panic. The only thing your bath-robed, flip-flopped, weed-eating neighbor wants to talk about over the fence isn’t the Yankees, but, of all things ... climate change.
Shaking your head, you think: What just happened?
With a non-binding agreement coming out of Copenhagen at the same time that atmospheric CO2 creeps above 390 parts per million, it’s possible that a new feeling might soon gain prevalence in the hearts of people who understand climate science. That feeling is panic. Specifically, climate panic.
In the same way that paleoclimate records show evidence of abrupt climate changes, we think it’s increasingly possible that policy responses to climate change will themselves be abrupt. After years of policy inaction, a public climate backlash is already smoldering. When it blows, it could force radical policy in a short timeframe. It’s the same kind of cultural tipping point, often triggered by dramatic events, that has led to revolutions or wars in the past.
The backlash is brewing in the form of increasingly strident comments from respected and influential people. Economist and Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman has called government indolence on the issue “treason.” NRDC attorney Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has called it “a crime against nature.” Environmental journalist and author Elizabeth Kolbert has described “a technologically advanced society choosing to destroy itself,” while James Hansen and Rajendra Pachauri, perhaps the world’s leading climate scientists, have said inaction in the next several years will doom the planet.
Meanwhile, that very planet is visibly changing—epic droughts, fires and dust storms in Australia; floods in Asia, alarmingly fast melting of land ice in Greenland and Antarctica; the prospect of an ice-free summer on the Arctic Sea; raging, unprecedented fires throughout the world; and mosquito-borne illnesses like Dengue spreading to regions previously untouched. Measurements show that the oceans are rising and becoming more acidic, while the Earth’s average temperature was higher in the past decade than at any time in the past century.
At some point, even climate change becomes teenager obvious: “Well, Duh, Dad! Look around you!”
When the psychology of in-your-face warming gets combined with a shocking climate event—something like Hurricane Katrina on steroids—you end up with a witches brew that can result in what political scientist Aristide Zolberg has referred to as “moments of madness”—unique historical moments when society challenges conventional wisdom and new norms are forcibly—oftentimes disruptively—created.
There are many historical precedents: the economic and political chaos in Weimar Germany that ultimately led to the rise of Hitler, the violence of the French Revolution, the sudden, peaceful collapse of the Soviet empire.
Stock market panics are another example: a rapid change in mindset that illustrates the dangerous unpredictability of human systems. On climate, such a response could mean sudden and painfully costly dislocations in the energy markets—and therefore the global economy—that wind up becoming the “worst case” scenario that few people had considered possible.
It is exactly these economic impacts that the Glenn Becks and the Rush Limbaughs fear we’ll impose on ourselves through restrictive government regulation of energy and carbon emissions. Ironically, a “no action” approach today actually makes a climate panic much more likely over time. What we’re describing would be popularly driven, not fueled by governments or policy wonks. It would be the direct result of free will, democracy, autonomy and the information superhighway. All these forces would accelerate, not mitigate, the greatest “Aha!” moment in the history of the human species. Imagine the sub-prime mortgage bubble pop multiplied a hundred fold.
Yet business and government planners continue to anticipate much less abrupt transitions to a carbon-constrained future. Even renewable energy policy and emissions reduction scenarios dismissed as crazily aggressive are based on relatively incremental change.
That’s a big problem. We believe that business leaders and politicians need to add a more radical scenario to their risk assessment: a climate panic that turns us from agents into victims, ushering in chaos. The only way to avoid this catastrophic scenario is a kind of backfire panic of our own: radical, rapid, and aggressive implementation of climate policy in the United States as a message to the world. In the end, as venture capitalist Eugene Kleiner has pointed out, “sometimes panic is an appropriate response.”
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4. Blog Considers Blessings of Animals Ceremonies in Jewish Settings
Thanks to Blogger and JVNA advisor Michael Croland for his extensive research on this issue and for forwarding his blog entry to us.
http://heebnvegan.blogspot.com/2009/12/jews-adopt-blessing-of-animals.html
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5. A World Day For the Abolition of Meat Consumption?
Forwarded message:
Hello animal rights activists!
Firstly I would like to wish you a very happy new year with a lot of joy and full of great actions for the animals!
Secondly I would like to inform you about this international day that demands the end of slaughterhouses. I think this is something very important for the animal rights movement and it would be great if actions are made in many towns in the world. 30 January will be a Saturday so we thought that this time we can make actions this day, but it is also possible to make actions all the week ( from 24 January to 31 January ), maybe it is even better because journalists don't often work on week-ends. Some activist material has also been added on this website: www.nomoremeat.org, you can also see on it the actions of the last year.
Can you please spread this information and organize something? That would be great. If you do please send un an email with the date, the place and the type of action planned. (Remember also to take some photographs of the action so that we can put them afterwards on the « action reports » page.)
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What is the World Day for the Abolition of Meat?
The World Day for the Abolition of Meat is intended as a means of promoting the idea of abolishing the murder of animals for food. Worldwide six million sentient beings are killed for their flesh every hour! That figure doesn't even count the fish and other sea animals, which of course are included in the demand for the abolition of meat. Meat consumption causes more suffering and death than any other human activity and is completely unnecessary. Many groups will mobilize to promote the abolition of meat (and other animal products). They will not only advocate vegetarianism and veganism to individuals but will call for society to abandon the practice of killing animals for food. We hope that this initiative will strengthen the animal rights movement over the years. It is important to address people not only as consumers but also as citizens like the anti-slavery activists who, although only a small minority, not only sought a boycott of sugar produced by slaves but also clearly expressed the idea that slavery should be banned. It is important today to question society as a whole about the murder of animals for food so that it can no longer avoid a public debate on the legitimacy of this practice. On 30 January (or on another day from 24th to 31st January) conferences, street actions, leafleting and information stands will be organized to spread the idea that the consumption of animals cannot be justified ethically and should therefore be abolished just as human slavery was in its time. Here is the video of an original action that can be used for the world day, made by Swiss activists in 2007 (other groups are welcome to use the same format):
http://youtube.com/watch?v=z-iUs0kaDB0
Your actions can be reported on this website: http://www.nomoremeat.org/ Send us an email if you plan something in your town: meat.abo.day@gmail.com
And for more information:
I recommend you this great article explaining why it is important to demand the abolition of meat: http://www.cahiers-antispecistes.org/spip.php?article369
A FAQ about the movement for the abolition of meat: http://en.m-eat.org/wiki/FAQ
A Yahoo group to organize actions for the abolition of meat: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/meatabolition/
Best wishes,
Anushavan Sarukhanyan, from Switzerland
www.nomoremeat.org
Because meat production involves killing the animals that are eaten, because their living conditions and slaughter cause many of them to suffer, because eating meat and other animal products isn't necessary, because sentient beings shouldn't be mistreated or killed unnecessarily, therefore, farming, fishing and hunting animals, as well as selling and eating animal flesh, should be abolished.
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6. Web Site Gives Links to Many Valuable Vegetarian Sites
http://www.northjersey.com/food_dining/food_news/80250042.html
Thanks to author and JVNA advisor Dan Brook for forwarding this link to us.
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7. Kosher Slaughterhouse Shut Down
[As I have advocated in the case of the Postville slaughterhouse. I think such events should be promoted as wake-up calls to try to get the Jewish community to address the many moral questions related to our diets.]
Thanks to author and JVNA advisor Lewis Regenstein for forwarding this message:
http://jta.org/news/article/2009/12/29/1009944/federal-judge-closes-down-kosher-slaughterhouse
Federal judge closes down kosher slaughterhouse
December 29, 2009
(JTA) -- A kosher poultry slaughterhouse has been shut down due to unsanitary conditions.
Federal Judge Stephen C. Robinson of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York on Tuesday ordered the New Square kosher poultry slaughterhouse closed after years of attempts by the USDA to force the plant to comply with the federal Poultry Products Inspection Act, the Journal News reported.
The slaughterhouse's attorney asked the judge to allow the plant to operate for an additional two weeks to give its kosher-consuming customers time to find another source for kosher poultry. The judge refused the request, after government lawyers said it was too great a risk, according to the Journal News.
During an April inspection, federal inspectors found there was no soap or hand sanitizers in the employee bathrooms, and found poultry residue on walls, light fixtures and in the manager's office.
The slaughterhouse has been planning to build a state-of-the-art facility in the Chasidic Jewish community of Ramapo, a town bordered by New Jersey, a move being resisted by the county.
The plant slaughters 1,500 to 1,600 chickens and turkeys a day, six days a week, and its' products are sold at Oneg Poultry, a retail store in New Square, N.Y.
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Forward Article on the Issue:
http://forward.com/articles/122215/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=Emailmarketingsoftware&utm_content=370046144&utm_campaign=January82010+_+kkiyc&utm_term=NewSquareHasidiminTroubleAgainFedsShutSlaughterhouse
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8. Petition Asks President Obama to Give Up Eating Meat
Thanks to author JVNA advisor Arthur Poletti for setting up this petition, and sending us the message below.
http://globalhealth.change.org/actions/view/president_obama_you_and_your_family_should_stop_eating_animal_flesh
President Obama, You And Your Family Should Stop Eating Animal Flesh
Targeting: The President of the United States, The U.S. Senate and The U.S. House
Started by: Arthur Poletti
ANIMAL FLESH EATERS, VEGETARIANS, AND GOVERNMENT LEADERS THROUGHOUT THE WORLD: “UNITE” AND TAKE ACTION “BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE"
Together you have the power and worldwide influence to save the lives of billions of animals, subsequently creating a multitude of everlasting monumental benefits for humans, the earth, and the earth’s atmosphere.
Together your revolutionary profound efforts could be responsible for shutting down most or all animal factory farms and slaughterhouses in the world. Carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide together cause the vast majority of global warming.
Raising animals for food is one of the largest sources of carbon dioxide and the single largest source of both methane and nitrous oxide emissions. Removing animal flesh from the food chain may be the only realistic, viable, manageable, enforceable, and effective government solution needed to slow global warming, and to ultimately play the largest role in stopping it. The human race cannot run away from or escape the consequences of global warming!!
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9. Campaign to Get Climate Experts to Promote Veg Diets as a Response to Climate Change
Veg Climate Alliance is sending the letter below to Dr. James Hansen of NASA, and plans to send similar letters to other climate experts, including Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Lord Nicholas Stern and Al Gore.
Dear Dr. Hansen
We greatly appreciate your efforts for many years to focus the world’s attention on climate change and the urgency of effectively responding to it. We are happy about your improved health and wish you many more years of active involvement.
We are an alliance of many groups who share your awareness of the immense impact of diet on the climate. Your statement on the effectiveness of eating lower on the food chain is now famous among our peers. However the general public is mainly unaware of the substantial impact they can make with their food choices.
As you know, Dr. Hansen, there is no way the world can avoid the impending unprecedented climate catastrophe without a major shift to plant-based diets. Hence we urge you to make dietary changes a major part of your message, perhaps joining with others like Dr. Pachauri, Lord Stern and (we can dream) perhaps even Al Gore in a major public statement.
We would be happy to help spread that message as widely as possible.
If you have suggestions about how we might help, please let us know.
Many thanks again for your strong and steadfast advocacy for the earth and all its inhabitants, and best wishes for your continued success.
Sincerely
Veg Climate Alliance
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10. Vegan Foods for Pets?
Forwarded message:
This certainly has been true for our vegan dogs as well! By the way, we highly recommend Evolution vegan pet foods which can be bought here: http://www.petfoodshop.com/ or via MARC's buying club.
[JVNA does not endorse any products, so this is here only for informational purposes.]
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Research by UNE scientist shows dogs thrive as vegetarians
21 Dec, 2009 09:00 AM
http://tinyurl.com/yb666b9
ARMIDALE scientist Wendy Brown is at the centre of groundbreaking international research that has found that dogs can thrive on a meat-free diet.
Dr Brown was part of a team of scientists who monitored the health and performance of Siberian huskies over a 10-week sled-racing season.
They concluded that hard-working dogs can perform just as well on a meat-free diet as they do on a meat-rich diet.
Their results, published earlier this year in the British Journal of Nutrition (Vol 102, pp 1318-1323), add to the evidence that dogs fed an exclusively vegetarian diet can be just as healthy and happy as their meat-eating relatives.
Dr Brown, the canine nutritionist from the University of New England who led the husky trial, is confident that dogs can thrive on a meat-free diet.
She warns dog owners, however, that preparing an adequate vegetarian diet for a dog is more difficult and time-consuming than they might think.
Dr Brown has concerns, too, about some of the vegetarian dog foods that are becoming commercially available in growing numbers.
Many of these, she said, are untested.
"People manufacturing and buying vegetarian and vegan pet foods are often against testing, believing that even feeding trials are cruel," she said.
"But feeding trials can be done in a friendly way. For my own trials, I borrow people's pet dogs - some of them show dogs - and they are always well cared for. People visiting my kennels comment on how happy the dogs look. And they are.
"When I feed my own dogs, I want to know that what they're eating is nutritionally adequate.
"As dogs belong to the order Carnivora, it's often assumed that they are exclusively carnivorous, but in fact they are omnivores, belonging to the same superfamily within the Carnivora as the bamboo-eating giant panda and the omnivorous bear."
In a paper presented at the University of New England during the international conference Recent Advances in Animal Nutrition 2009 and published in the conference proceedings, Dr Brown addresses the common argument that vegetarians should not impose their own values on their pets.
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11. “We Are All One,” A Wonderful Environmental Message
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCnWZncHH2Y&feature=related
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12. Tu B’Shvat-Related Message From the Shalom Center
Forwarded message from Rabbi Arthur Waskow:
Dear chevra,
[Bottom line for this letter: I urge that multireligious groups together see the new film AVATAR this month; learn with me by teleconference seminar on January 14 the connections between this film and the meaning of the festival of Tu B'Shvat that celebrates the ReBirthDay of the Tree of Life; and then gather January 29 to eat together the sacred meal of Tu B'Shvat. Why? See the unfolding below. -- AW]
Several milestones in my life came this past week as I continue climbing into and beyond my post-car-crash ordeal of the last four months. One came Sunday afternoon, when Phyllis and I saw our first movie-movie (in a movie house, not DVD) since August. We drove there in a used Prius we have just bought to replace the car that was totaled in August.
The film was AVATAR. It is an obvious metaphor for the European-USA destruction of Native America and Africa; for the corporate destruction of the Amazon forest and its tribal human eco-partners; for the US destruction of much of Iraq and parts of Afghanistan.
For the indigenous peoples of the film's planet Pandora, the most sacred places are ancient living trees that embody the life force of the planet. So for me, the film spoke powerfully in the tongue of Tu B'Shvat, the festival of the Trees' ReBirthDay.
AVATAR is extraordinary. -- Not only the technology of the filming/ viewing, 3D and FX, but most of all for its spiritually rooted progressive politics.
See it!
See it in the spirit of its watchword: "I see you." Expressing what in Hebrew is "yodea," interactive knowing that is emotional, intellectual, physical/ sexual, and spiritual all at one – what "grok" is in the English borrowing from High Martian, channeled by Robert Heinlein.
In the film, the indigenous people – the Na'vi – [in Hebrew, this would mean "prophet"] of Pandora stand in the way of an Earthian techno-conquistador corporation that is hungry to gobble up a rare mineral.
The Na'vi worship/ celebrate a biological unity of the planet and all its life-forms -- Eywa -- especially focused on great trees that are the most sacred centers of their lives. These great trees embody Eywa, the Great Mother – but S/He is more than even these trees, S/He is all life. Spirit incarnate.
We are just now approaching the ecological-mystical festival of Tu B'Shvat. It intertwines celebration of the midwinter rebirth of trees and the rebirth of the Great Tree of Life Itself, God, Whose roots are in heaven and whose fruit is our world. Tu B'Shvat comes on the 15th day (the full moon) of the midwinter Jewish lunar month of Sh'vat. This year, that falls from Friday evening January 29, till Saturday evening, January 30.
Out of winter, out of seeming death, out of seeds that sank into the earth three months before, the juice of life begins to rise again. Begins invisibly, to sprout in spring.
Beneath the official deadly failures of the Copenhagen conference that was supposed to reinvigorate the world's effort to face the climate crisis, the seeds of rebirth were growing. They were growing in the grass-roots activists who will not let our earth die so easily at the hands of Oil and Coal and governmental arrogance as the Crusher tanks and rocket-planes and the robotic Marine generals and corporate exploiters of AVATAR would like to kill Pandora and its God/dess Eywa.
I urge that Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Wiccans, those who celebrate Manitou/ GreatSpirit in the varied forms of Native practice, join for Tu B'Shvat to celebrate the Sacred Forests of our planet.
I urge that we reach across our boundaries and barricades to celebrate the trees that breathe us into life. The forests that absorb the carbon dioxide that humans are over-producing, the forests that breathe out life-giving oxygen for ourselves and all the other animals to breathe in.
For us, Eywa is YyyyyHhhhWwwwHhhh, "pronounceable" only by breathing, the Interbreathing of all life, Great Mother/Father/ Creator of our planet Whose breath, Whose very Name, is through the climate crisis and global scorching being choked by corporate rapacity and governmental arrogance.
I urge that we begin by going , anytime from now till January 29, in interfaith, multireligious groups to see AVATAR and then discuss its meaning in our lives. And then I suggest we gather on the evening of January 29 to celebrate the sacred meal of Tu B'Shvat together
What's to discuss? AVATAR teaches that the war against peoples and the war against the earth are the same war, being incited and fought by the same Crusher institutions. If we agree with this, how do we bring together the so-far separate struggles to end the two kinds of war? If we don't agree, how do we see the relationship?
AVATAR teaches that in the struggle to heal our world, birds and animals and trees and grasses can become our active allies if we "see" them as part of ourselves, part of our Beloved Community. Is there a way to make this true for us?
AVATAR describes how some Earthians turn their backs on the military-corporate attempt to shatter the Na'vi and instead join the Na'vi resistance. What do we Americans, we Westerners, make of that?
On January 29, what's to eat? A sacred meal, a Seder with four courses of nuts and fruit and four cups of wine. Foods that require the death of no living being, not even a carrot or a radish that dies when its roots are plucked from the earth. For the Trees of Life give forth their nuts and fruit in such profusion that to eat them kills no being. The sacred meal of the Tree Reborn is itself a meal of life.
And the four cups of wine are: all-white; white with a drop of red; red with a drop of white; and all-red: the union of white semen and red blood that the ancients thought were the start of procreation. And the progression from pale winter to the colorful fruitfulness of fall also betokens the growing-forth of life. The theme of Fours embodies the Four Worlds of Kabbalah: Action, Emotion, Intellect, Spirit.
There is much more to learn about this moment that so richly intertwines the mystical, the ecological, and the political. I helped bring together the Tu B'Shvat Anthology called Trees, Earth, & Torah (available in paperback from the Jewish Publication Society at 1.800.234.3151) that traces the festival through all its own flowering across 4,000 years of history.
On the evening of Thursday, January 14, I will lead a teleconference seminar on the meanings of the Festival and its connections to AVATAR. All are welcome. To see what to do in order to take part, please click here.
https://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/602/t/4180/shop/custom.jsp?donate_page_KEY=5841
I look forward to speaking with you, "seeing" you.
You can also click to this essay on our Home Page at
http://www.theshalomcenter.org
and comment there. Share your thoughts about AVATAR, sacred trees, Tu B'Shvat, and corporate behavior!
With blessings of shalom, salaam, shantih – peace.
Arthur
Additional special message to me and JVNA
Dear Richard,
Yesterday’s letter included three action proposals: that multireligious groups together see AVATAR this month and discuss its meaning for our lives and work; that people learn with me by teleconference seminar on January 14 about Tu B’Shvat, including its connections with AVATAR and some of the questions the film might raise for us; and that multireligious groups gather January 29 to eat together the sacred meal of Tu B'Shvat and plan toward action to protect forests and prevent climate disaster. (Ideally but not at all necessarily, people would do all three.)
I am writing now to underline all three items, and especially to invite you and JVNA to explore one of them -- the teleconference seminar -- in this way:
I will lead/ weave the seminar from 8 pm to 9:30 on Thursday evening, January 14. The fee to take part is $18. BUT -- If you or someone in JVNA will bundle people to take part in that seminar, for every set of five people the fee will be cut one-fifth: five people for the price of four ($72 instead of $90). The way it will work: JVNA sends us the check at 6711 Lincoln Drive Philadelphia PA 19119, along with five names with USPS and Email addresses; we send those people the phone number to call for the telesem.
[If interested in this special deal, please contact me. It will only work if 5 people express an interest in it.]
. . .
Many thanks --
With blessings of shalom, salaam, shantih – peace.
-- Arthur
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13. Debate on Eating Meat (or Not) at the Hazon Web Site
Please consider joining "The Debate: Eating Meat (or not) at the Hazon Food Conference".
http://jcarrot.org/the-debate-eating-meat-at-the-hazon-food-conference
I have posted a number of responses.
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14. Update and Recent Comments on World Watch Article That Argues that Livestock Sector Causes At Least 51% of Human-Caused Greenhouse Gas Emissions
update by Robert Goodland (co-author of the original article) on the article in World Watch is at http://www.wellfedworld.org/PDF/FAOConsult12-09.pdf
Below are comments on the original article by Australia's Geoff Russell (who's been a co-author with Peter Singer on various material) -- which seems to have helped him get to the point of posting a column yesterday excerpted as follows (and visible in its entirety at http://theenergycollective.com/TheEnergyCollective/55860)):
Is livestock consumption exceeding plant growth?
In my last BNC post, I referred to an estimate just published as a WorldWatch report that put the impact of livestock on greenhouse forcings at about 51 percent [actually at least 51%, according to the article] of the global anthropogenic total. I didn’t analyse this figure, but suggested it wasn’t unreasonable to think that land clearing, feeding, watering, housing, slaughter, transport and cooking implicit in dealing with 700 million tonnes of livestock biomass could conceivably be responsible for half of the total climate impact of 335 million tonnes of human biomass. But I was waiting for more expert analysis and still am. Many of the additions over and above the 2006 Livestock’s Long Shadow (LLS) estimate rely on close knowledge of the precise details of the FAO’s statistical data collection processes.
But on theoretical grounds, one of the most contentious inclusions in the 51 percent figure is livestock respiration … the carbon dioxide that livestock exhale. On the face of it, this seems plain wrong. All of the carbon dioxide in livestock respiration comes from the atmosphere via photosynthesis in plants. So it’s simply part of the carbon cycle. Isn’t it? The WorldWatch authors have subsequently justified this a little further, re-citing evidence given in LLS which states that animal respiration plus soil carbon oxidation (co2 flowing into the atmosphere) exceeds the drawdown due to photosynthesis by one or two billion tonnes of carbon annually. In many cases it is livestock driving the loss of soil carbon by deforestation and desertification and given that the planet’s 700 million tonnes of livestock dwarf wildlife by a ratio of about 23:3, it is possible that the planet’s total plant biomass may be shrinking under livestock’s onslaught. This is the implication of the reduction of NPP noted above and the carbon flow imbalance just mentioned.
I say may be shrinking because it’s tough to measure things like global photosynthesis or global respiration, and the figures in LLS are not the same as the figures in the Austrian work. Close, but not the same. But if the respiration plus soil carbon losses really are outstripping photosynthesis, then including at least some livestock respiration in the ledger isn’t just reasonable, but mandatory.
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15. Getting Veg Info Into a Worldwide Travel Guide
Thanks to author and JVNA advisor dan Brook for the following message:
"Wikitravel is a project to create a free, complete, up-to-date, and reliable worldwide travel guide. ... written and edited by Wikitravellers from around the globe."
http://wikitravel.org/en/Main_Page
[from the Wikitravel web site.]
After using Wikitravel this summer, I had the idea that we should slightly (not overwhelmingly) vegify it.
For every city that we live in, used to live in, or have traveled to, we should make sure that there is one or two veg restaurants listed and, if there isn't, to add them. Likewise with veg hotels and other veg attractions, if any.
If we overdo it for any location, it could be a problem (though maybe not); if we do a little for many, many cities, it could help raise awareness while supporting veg restaurants and other veg businesses.
I'd be interested in your thoughts about this.
Please post/blog/forward/tweet/share where appropriate.
Peace,
Dan
Eco-Eating at www.brook.com/veg
The Vegetarian Mitzvah at www.brook.com/vegj
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This update/Jewish Vegetarians of North America (JVNA) Online Newsletter has the following items:
1. Strategy Ideas For 2010
2. Turning Tu B’Shvat into an Environmental Shabbat
3. A Climate Panic in the World’s Future?
4. Blog Considers Blessings of Animals Ceremonies in Jewish Settings
5. A World Day For the Abolition of Meat Consumption?
6. Web Site Gives Links to Many Valuable Vegetarian Sites
7. Kosher Slaughterhouse Shut Down
8. Petition Asks President Obama to Give Up Eating Meat
9. Campaign to Get Climate Experts to Promote Veg Diets as a Response to Climate Change
10. Vegan Foods for Pets?
11. “We Are All One,” A Wonderful Environmental Message
12. Tu B’Shvat-Related Message From the Shalom Center
13. Debate on Eating Meat (or Not) at the Hazon Web Site
14. Update and Recent Comments on World Watch Article That Argues that Livestock Sector Causes At Least 51% of Human-Caused Greenhouse Gas Emissions
15. Getting Veg Info Into a Worldwide Travel Guide
Some material has been deferred to a later update/newsletter to keep this one from being even longer.
[Materials in brackets like this [ ] within an article or forwarded message are my editorial notes/comments.]
Opinions expressed do not necessarily represent the views of the JVNA, unless otherwise indicated, but may be presented to increase awareness and/or to encourage respectful dialogue. Also, material re conferences, retreats, forums, trips, and other events does not necessarily imply endorsement by JVNA or endorsement of the kashrut, Shabbat observances, or any other Jewish observances, but may be presented for informational purposes. Please use e-mail addresses, telephone numbers, and web sites to get further information about any event that you are interested in. Also, JVNA does not necessarily agree with all positions of groups whose views are included or whose events are announced in this newsletter.
As always, your comments and suggestions are very welcome.
Thanks,
Richard
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1. Strategy Ideas For 2010
At the start of a new year and a new decade, we should recognize that we have accomplished much, but still have a long way to go to change people’s perceptions and get vegetarianism onto society’s agenda.
Here are some thoughts re effective outreach efforts: Stress that (1) the world is rapidly approaching an unprecedented catastrophe, (2) some climate experts are warning that global warming may soon reach a tipping point and spiral out of control, and (3) a major societal shift to plant-based diets is essential to provide even the possibility of avoiding the impending climate catastrophe.
* Take advantage of the many opportunities provided by newspaper articles on health, the environment, the treatment of animals, climate change, scarce resources, etc., to write letters to editors that stress how a shift to veg diets would improve conditions.
* Consider that you should take responsibility to do all that you can to help avoid a disaster due to climate change. Speak to everyone you can, especially rabbis and other religious leaders, educators, environmentalists, animal rights activists, etc., to increase awareness of the issues, and the urgency of shifts to plant-based diets.
* Respectfully challenge rabbis and other religious leaders to apply religious values to their diets and speak out on the issues.
* Stress that then production and consumption of meat and other animal products violate basic Jewish teachings on taking care of our health, treating animals with compassion, protecting the environment, conserving natural resources and helping hungry people.
* Let people know that they can see our acclaimed, award-winning documentary “A Sacred Duty: Applying Jewish Values to Help Heal the World” at www.ASacredDuty.com, and that at this web site, people can also read blurbs and reviews and questions and answers and request a complimentary DVD.
Please send me suggestions for additional strategy ideas. Thanks.
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2. Turning Tu B’Shvat into an Environmental Shabbat
Recently a special JVNA newsletter with a press release, several articles and lists of Tu B’Shvat-related resources was sent to you. Please use this material to help plan Tu B’Shvat seders and other events in your community. Please share materials with local rabbis, Jewish educators and others who might be interested. Also, please see my two Tu B’Shvat-related articles in the festivals section at JewishVeg.com/Schwartz, and use them for creating letters to editors and talking points. Thanks.
Please visit the following web site to hear JVNA advisor Catherine Manna read my article, “Turning Tu B’Shvat into an Environmental Shabbat.” Thanks, Catherine.
http://media11.podbean.com/pb/82022b5dbe5b610af0e1727e768c5eae/4b493f8f/blogs11/216428/uploads/TurningTuBShvatintoanEnvironme.m4a
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3. A Climate Panic in the World’s Future?
The coming climate panic?
BY AUDEN SCHENDLER, MARK TREXLER
http://www.grist.org/article/2009-12-23-the-coming-climate-panic
One morning in the not too distant future, you might wake up and walk to your mailbox. The newspaper is in there and it’s covered with shocking headlines: Coal Plants Shut Down! Airline Travel Down 50 Percent! New Federal Carbon Restrictions in Place! Governor Kicked Out of Office for Climate Indolence!
Sometimes change is abrupt and unsettling. History shows that societies in crisis too often leap from calm reaction to outright panic. The only thing your bath-robed, flip-flopped, weed-eating neighbor wants to talk about over the fence isn’t the Yankees, but, of all things ... climate change.
Shaking your head, you think: What just happened?
With a non-binding agreement coming out of Copenhagen at the same time that atmospheric CO2 creeps above 390 parts per million, it’s possible that a new feeling might soon gain prevalence in the hearts of people who understand climate science. That feeling is panic. Specifically, climate panic.
In the same way that paleoclimate records show evidence of abrupt climate changes, we think it’s increasingly possible that policy responses to climate change will themselves be abrupt. After years of policy inaction, a public climate backlash is already smoldering. When it blows, it could force radical policy in a short timeframe. It’s the same kind of cultural tipping point, often triggered by dramatic events, that has led to revolutions or wars in the past.
The backlash is brewing in the form of increasingly strident comments from respected and influential people. Economist and Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman has called government indolence on the issue “treason.” NRDC attorney Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has called it “a crime against nature.” Environmental journalist and author Elizabeth Kolbert has described “a technologically advanced society choosing to destroy itself,” while James Hansen and Rajendra Pachauri, perhaps the world’s leading climate scientists, have said inaction in the next several years will doom the planet.
Meanwhile, that very planet is visibly changing—epic droughts, fires and dust storms in Australia; floods in Asia, alarmingly fast melting of land ice in Greenland and Antarctica; the prospect of an ice-free summer on the Arctic Sea; raging, unprecedented fires throughout the world; and mosquito-borne illnesses like Dengue spreading to regions previously untouched. Measurements show that the oceans are rising and becoming more acidic, while the Earth’s average temperature was higher in the past decade than at any time in the past century.
At some point, even climate change becomes teenager obvious: “Well, Duh, Dad! Look around you!”
When the psychology of in-your-face warming gets combined with a shocking climate event—something like Hurricane Katrina on steroids—you end up with a witches brew that can result in what political scientist Aristide Zolberg has referred to as “moments of madness”—unique historical moments when society challenges conventional wisdom and new norms are forcibly—oftentimes disruptively—created.
There are many historical precedents: the economic and political chaos in Weimar Germany that ultimately led to the rise of Hitler, the violence of the French Revolution, the sudden, peaceful collapse of the Soviet empire.
Stock market panics are another example: a rapid change in mindset that illustrates the dangerous unpredictability of human systems. On climate, such a response could mean sudden and painfully costly dislocations in the energy markets—and therefore the global economy—that wind up becoming the “worst case” scenario that few people had considered possible.
It is exactly these economic impacts that the Glenn Becks and the Rush Limbaughs fear we’ll impose on ourselves through restrictive government regulation of energy and carbon emissions. Ironically, a “no action” approach today actually makes a climate panic much more likely over time. What we’re describing would be popularly driven, not fueled by governments or policy wonks. It would be the direct result of free will, democracy, autonomy and the information superhighway. All these forces would accelerate, not mitigate, the greatest “Aha!” moment in the history of the human species. Imagine the sub-prime mortgage bubble pop multiplied a hundred fold.
Yet business and government planners continue to anticipate much less abrupt transitions to a carbon-constrained future. Even renewable energy policy and emissions reduction scenarios dismissed as crazily aggressive are based on relatively incremental change.
That’s a big problem. We believe that business leaders and politicians need to add a more radical scenario to their risk assessment: a climate panic that turns us from agents into victims, ushering in chaos. The only way to avoid this catastrophic scenario is a kind of backfire panic of our own: radical, rapid, and aggressive implementation of climate policy in the United States as a message to the world. In the end, as venture capitalist Eugene Kleiner has pointed out, “sometimes panic is an appropriate response.”
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4. Blog Considers Blessings of Animals Ceremonies in Jewish Settings
Thanks to Blogger and JVNA advisor Michael Croland for his extensive research on this issue and for forwarding his blog entry to us.
http://heebnvegan.blogspot.com/2009/12/jews-adopt-blessing-of-animals.html
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5. A World Day For the Abolition of Meat Consumption?
Forwarded message:
Hello animal rights activists!
Firstly I would like to wish you a very happy new year with a lot of joy and full of great actions for the animals!
Secondly I would like to inform you about this international day that demands the end of slaughterhouses. I think this is something very important for the animal rights movement and it would be great if actions are made in many towns in the world. 30 January will be a Saturday so we thought that this time we can make actions this day, but it is also possible to make actions all the week ( from 24 January to 31 January ), maybe it is even better because journalists don't often work on week-ends. Some activist material has also been added on this website: www.nomoremeat.org, you can also see on it the actions of the last year.
Can you please spread this information and organize something? That would be great. If you do please send un an email with the date, the place and the type of action planned. (Remember also to take some photographs of the action so that we can put them afterwards on the « action reports » page.)
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What is the World Day for the Abolition of Meat?
The World Day for the Abolition of Meat is intended as a means of promoting the idea of abolishing the murder of animals for food. Worldwide six million sentient beings are killed for their flesh every hour! That figure doesn't even count the fish and other sea animals, which of course are included in the demand for the abolition of meat. Meat consumption causes more suffering and death than any other human activity and is completely unnecessary. Many groups will mobilize to promote the abolition of meat (and other animal products). They will not only advocate vegetarianism and veganism to individuals but will call for society to abandon the practice of killing animals for food. We hope that this initiative will strengthen the animal rights movement over the years. It is important to address people not only as consumers but also as citizens like the anti-slavery activists who, although only a small minority, not only sought a boycott of sugar produced by slaves but also clearly expressed the idea that slavery should be banned. It is important today to question society as a whole about the murder of animals for food so that it can no longer avoid a public debate on the legitimacy of this practice. On 30 January (or on another day from 24th to 31st January) conferences, street actions, leafleting and information stands will be organized to spread the idea that the consumption of animals cannot be justified ethically and should therefore be abolished just as human slavery was in its time. Here is the video of an original action that can be used for the world day, made by Swiss activists in 2007 (other groups are welcome to use the same format):
http://youtube.com/watch?v=z-iUs0kaDB0
Your actions can be reported on this website: http://www.nomoremeat.org/ Send us an email if you plan something in your town: meat.abo.day@gmail.com
And for more information:
I recommend you this great article explaining why it is important to demand the abolition of meat: http://www.cahiers-antispecistes.org/spip.php?article369
A FAQ about the movement for the abolition of meat: http://en.m-eat.org/wiki/FAQ
A Yahoo group to organize actions for the abolition of meat: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/meatabolition/
Best wishes,
Anushavan Sarukhanyan, from Switzerland
www.nomoremeat.org
Because meat production involves killing the animals that are eaten, because their living conditions and slaughter cause many of them to suffer, because eating meat and other animal products isn't necessary, because sentient beings shouldn't be mistreated or killed unnecessarily, therefore, farming, fishing and hunting animals, as well as selling and eating animal flesh, should be abolished.
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6. Web Site Gives Links to Many Valuable Vegetarian Sites
http://www.northjersey.com/food_dining/food_news/80250042.html
Thanks to author and JVNA advisor Dan Brook for forwarding this link to us.
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7. Kosher Slaughterhouse Shut Down
[As I have advocated in the case of the Postville slaughterhouse. I think such events should be promoted as wake-up calls to try to get the Jewish community to address the many moral questions related to our diets.]
Thanks to author and JVNA advisor Lewis Regenstein for forwarding this message:
http://jta.org/news/article/2009/12/29/1009944/federal-judge-closes-down-kosher-slaughterhouse
Federal judge closes down kosher slaughterhouse
December 29, 2009
(JTA) -- A kosher poultry slaughterhouse has been shut down due to unsanitary conditions.
Federal Judge Stephen C. Robinson of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York on Tuesday ordered the New Square kosher poultry slaughterhouse closed after years of attempts by the USDA to force the plant to comply with the federal Poultry Products Inspection Act, the Journal News reported.
The slaughterhouse's attorney asked the judge to allow the plant to operate for an additional two weeks to give its kosher-consuming customers time to find another source for kosher poultry. The judge refused the request, after government lawyers said it was too great a risk, according to the Journal News.
During an April inspection, federal inspectors found there was no soap or hand sanitizers in the employee bathrooms, and found poultry residue on walls, light fixtures and in the manager's office.
The slaughterhouse has been planning to build a state-of-the-art facility in the Chasidic Jewish community of Ramapo, a town bordered by New Jersey, a move being resisted by the county.
The plant slaughters 1,500 to 1,600 chickens and turkeys a day, six days a week, and its' products are sold at Oneg Poultry, a retail store in New Square, N.Y.
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Forward Article on the Issue:
http://forward.com/articles/122215/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=Emailmarketingsoftware&utm_content=370046144&utm_campaign=January82010+_+kkiyc&utm_term=NewSquareHasidiminTroubleAgainFedsShutSlaughterhouse
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8. Petition Asks President Obama to Give Up Eating Meat
Thanks to author JVNA advisor Arthur Poletti for setting up this petition, and sending us the message below.
http://globalhealth.change.org/actions/view/president_obama_you_and_your_family_should_stop_eating_animal_flesh
President Obama, You And Your Family Should Stop Eating Animal Flesh
Targeting: The President of the United States, The U.S. Senate and The U.S. House
Started by: Arthur Poletti
ANIMAL FLESH EATERS, VEGETARIANS, AND GOVERNMENT LEADERS THROUGHOUT THE WORLD: “UNITE” AND TAKE ACTION “BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE"
Together you have the power and worldwide influence to save the lives of billions of animals, subsequently creating a multitude of everlasting monumental benefits for humans, the earth, and the earth’s atmosphere.
Together your revolutionary profound efforts could be responsible for shutting down most or all animal factory farms and slaughterhouses in the world. Carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide together cause the vast majority of global warming.
Raising animals for food is one of the largest sources of carbon dioxide and the single largest source of both methane and nitrous oxide emissions. Removing animal flesh from the food chain may be the only realistic, viable, manageable, enforceable, and effective government solution needed to slow global warming, and to ultimately play the largest role in stopping it. The human race cannot run away from or escape the consequences of global warming!!
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9. Campaign to Get Climate Experts to Promote Veg Diets as a Response to Climate Change
Veg Climate Alliance is sending the letter below to Dr. James Hansen of NASA, and plans to send similar letters to other climate experts, including Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Lord Nicholas Stern and Al Gore.
Dear Dr. Hansen
We greatly appreciate your efforts for many years to focus the world’s attention on climate change and the urgency of effectively responding to it. We are happy about your improved health and wish you many more years of active involvement.
We are an alliance of many groups who share your awareness of the immense impact of diet on the climate. Your statement on the effectiveness of eating lower on the food chain is now famous among our peers. However the general public is mainly unaware of the substantial impact they can make with their food choices.
As you know, Dr. Hansen, there is no way the world can avoid the impending unprecedented climate catastrophe without a major shift to plant-based diets. Hence we urge you to make dietary changes a major part of your message, perhaps joining with others like Dr. Pachauri, Lord Stern and (we can dream) perhaps even Al Gore in a major public statement.
We would be happy to help spread that message as widely as possible.
If you have suggestions about how we might help, please let us know.
Many thanks again for your strong and steadfast advocacy for the earth and all its inhabitants, and best wishes for your continued success.
Sincerely
Veg Climate Alliance
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10. Vegan Foods for Pets?
Forwarded message:
This certainly has been true for our vegan dogs as well! By the way, we highly recommend Evolution vegan pet foods which can be bought here: http://www.petfoodshop.com/ or via MARC's buying club.
[JVNA does not endorse any products, so this is here only for informational purposes.]
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Research by UNE scientist shows dogs thrive as vegetarians
21 Dec, 2009 09:00 AM
http://tinyurl.com/yb666b9
ARMIDALE scientist Wendy Brown is at the centre of groundbreaking international research that has found that dogs can thrive on a meat-free diet.
Dr Brown was part of a team of scientists who monitored the health and performance of Siberian huskies over a 10-week sled-racing season.
They concluded that hard-working dogs can perform just as well on a meat-free diet as they do on a meat-rich diet.
Their results, published earlier this year in the British Journal of Nutrition (Vol 102, pp 1318-1323), add to the evidence that dogs fed an exclusively vegetarian diet can be just as healthy and happy as their meat-eating relatives.
Dr Brown, the canine nutritionist from the University of New England who led the husky trial, is confident that dogs can thrive on a meat-free diet.
She warns dog owners, however, that preparing an adequate vegetarian diet for a dog is more difficult and time-consuming than they might think.
Dr Brown has concerns, too, about some of the vegetarian dog foods that are becoming commercially available in growing numbers.
Many of these, she said, are untested.
"People manufacturing and buying vegetarian and vegan pet foods are often against testing, believing that even feeding trials are cruel," she said.
"But feeding trials can be done in a friendly way. For my own trials, I borrow people's pet dogs - some of them show dogs - and they are always well cared for. People visiting my kennels comment on how happy the dogs look. And they are.
"When I feed my own dogs, I want to know that what they're eating is nutritionally adequate.
"As dogs belong to the order Carnivora, it's often assumed that they are exclusively carnivorous, but in fact they are omnivores, belonging to the same superfamily within the Carnivora as the bamboo-eating giant panda and the omnivorous bear."
In a paper presented at the University of New England during the international conference Recent Advances in Animal Nutrition 2009 and published in the conference proceedings, Dr Brown addresses the common argument that vegetarians should not impose their own values on their pets.
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11. “We Are All One,” A Wonderful Environmental Message
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCnWZncHH2Y&feature=related
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12. Tu B’Shvat-Related Message From the Shalom Center
Forwarded message from Rabbi Arthur Waskow:
Dear chevra,
[Bottom line for this letter: I urge that multireligious groups together see the new film AVATAR this month; learn with me by teleconference seminar on January 14 the connections between this film and the meaning of the festival of Tu B'Shvat that celebrates the ReBirthDay of the Tree of Life; and then gather January 29 to eat together the sacred meal of Tu B'Shvat. Why? See the unfolding below. -- AW]
Several milestones in my life came this past week as I continue climbing into and beyond my post-car-crash ordeal of the last four months. One came Sunday afternoon, when Phyllis and I saw our first movie-movie (in a movie house, not DVD) since August. We drove there in a used Prius we have just bought to replace the car that was totaled in August.
The film was AVATAR. It is an obvious metaphor for the European-USA destruction of Native America and Africa; for the corporate destruction of the Amazon forest and its tribal human eco-partners; for the US destruction of much of Iraq and parts of Afghanistan.
For the indigenous peoples of the film's planet Pandora, the most sacred places are ancient living trees that embody the life force of the planet. So for me, the film spoke powerfully in the tongue of Tu B'Shvat, the festival of the Trees' ReBirthDay.
AVATAR is extraordinary. -- Not only the technology of the filming/ viewing, 3D and FX, but most of all for its spiritually rooted progressive politics.
See it!
See it in the spirit of its watchword: "I see you." Expressing what in Hebrew is "yodea," interactive knowing that is emotional, intellectual, physical/ sexual, and spiritual all at one – what "grok" is in the English borrowing from High Martian, channeled by Robert Heinlein.
In the film, the indigenous people – the Na'vi – [in Hebrew, this would mean "prophet"] of Pandora stand in the way of an Earthian techno-conquistador corporation that is hungry to gobble up a rare mineral.
The Na'vi worship/ celebrate a biological unity of the planet and all its life-forms -- Eywa -- especially focused on great trees that are the most sacred centers of their lives. These great trees embody Eywa, the Great Mother – but S/He is more than even these trees, S/He is all life. Spirit incarnate.
We are just now approaching the ecological-mystical festival of Tu B'Shvat. It intertwines celebration of the midwinter rebirth of trees and the rebirth of the Great Tree of Life Itself, God, Whose roots are in heaven and whose fruit is our world. Tu B'Shvat comes on the 15th day (the full moon) of the midwinter Jewish lunar month of Sh'vat. This year, that falls from Friday evening January 29, till Saturday evening, January 30.
Out of winter, out of seeming death, out of seeds that sank into the earth three months before, the juice of life begins to rise again. Begins invisibly, to sprout in spring.
Beneath the official deadly failures of the Copenhagen conference that was supposed to reinvigorate the world's effort to face the climate crisis, the seeds of rebirth were growing. They were growing in the grass-roots activists who will not let our earth die so easily at the hands of Oil and Coal and governmental arrogance as the Crusher tanks and rocket-planes and the robotic Marine generals and corporate exploiters of AVATAR would like to kill Pandora and its God/dess Eywa.
I urge that Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Wiccans, those who celebrate Manitou/ GreatSpirit in the varied forms of Native practice, join for Tu B'Shvat to celebrate the Sacred Forests of our planet.
I urge that we reach across our boundaries and barricades to celebrate the trees that breathe us into life. The forests that absorb the carbon dioxide that humans are over-producing, the forests that breathe out life-giving oxygen for ourselves and all the other animals to breathe in.
For us, Eywa is YyyyyHhhhWwwwHhhh, "pronounceable" only by breathing, the Interbreathing of all life, Great Mother/Father/ Creator of our planet Whose breath, Whose very Name, is through the climate crisis and global scorching being choked by corporate rapacity and governmental arrogance.
I urge that we begin by going , anytime from now till January 29, in interfaith, multireligious groups to see AVATAR and then discuss its meaning in our lives. And then I suggest we gather on the evening of January 29 to celebrate the sacred meal of Tu B'Shvat together
What's to discuss? AVATAR teaches that the war against peoples and the war against the earth are the same war, being incited and fought by the same Crusher institutions. If we agree with this, how do we bring together the so-far separate struggles to end the two kinds of war? If we don't agree, how do we see the relationship?
AVATAR teaches that in the struggle to heal our world, birds and animals and trees and grasses can become our active allies if we "see" them as part of ourselves, part of our Beloved Community. Is there a way to make this true for us?
AVATAR describes how some Earthians turn their backs on the military-corporate attempt to shatter the Na'vi and instead join the Na'vi resistance. What do we Americans, we Westerners, make of that?
On January 29, what's to eat? A sacred meal, a Seder with four courses of nuts and fruit and four cups of wine. Foods that require the death of no living being, not even a carrot or a radish that dies when its roots are plucked from the earth. For the Trees of Life give forth their nuts and fruit in such profusion that to eat them kills no being. The sacred meal of the Tree Reborn is itself a meal of life.
And the four cups of wine are: all-white; white with a drop of red; red with a drop of white; and all-red: the union of white semen and red blood that the ancients thought were the start of procreation. And the progression from pale winter to the colorful fruitfulness of fall also betokens the growing-forth of life. The theme of Fours embodies the Four Worlds of Kabbalah: Action, Emotion, Intellect, Spirit.
There is much more to learn about this moment that so richly intertwines the mystical, the ecological, and the political. I helped bring together the Tu B'Shvat Anthology called Trees, Earth, & Torah (available in paperback from the Jewish Publication Society at 1.800.234.3151) that traces the festival through all its own flowering across 4,000 years of history.
On the evening of Thursday, January 14, I will lead a teleconference seminar on the meanings of the Festival and its connections to AVATAR. All are welcome. To see what to do in order to take part, please click here.
https://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/602/t/4180/shop/custom.jsp?donate_page_KEY=5841
I look forward to speaking with you, "seeing" you.
You can also click to this essay on our Home Page at
http://www.theshalomcenter.org
and comment there. Share your thoughts about AVATAR, sacred trees, Tu B'Shvat, and corporate behavior!
With blessings of shalom, salaam, shantih – peace.
Arthur
Additional special message to me and JVNA
Dear Richard,
Yesterday’s letter included three action proposals: that multireligious groups together see AVATAR this month and discuss its meaning for our lives and work; that people learn with me by teleconference seminar on January 14 about Tu B’Shvat, including its connections with AVATAR and some of the questions the film might raise for us; and that multireligious groups gather January 29 to eat together the sacred meal of Tu B'Shvat and plan toward action to protect forests and prevent climate disaster. (Ideally but not at all necessarily, people would do all three.)
I am writing now to underline all three items, and especially to invite you and JVNA to explore one of them -- the teleconference seminar -- in this way:
I will lead/ weave the seminar from 8 pm to 9:30 on Thursday evening, January 14. The fee to take part is $18. BUT -- If you or someone in JVNA will bundle people to take part in that seminar, for every set of five people the fee will be cut one-fifth: five people for the price of four ($72 instead of $90). The way it will work: JVNA sends us the check at 6711 Lincoln Drive Philadelphia PA 19119, along with five names with USPS and Email addresses; we send those people the phone number to call for the telesem.
[If interested in this special deal, please contact me. It will only work if 5 people express an interest in it.]
. . .
Many thanks --
With blessings of shalom, salaam, shantih – peace.
-- Arthur
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13. Debate on Eating Meat (or Not) at the Hazon Web Site
Please consider joining "The Debate: Eating Meat (or not) at the Hazon Food Conference".
http://jcarrot.org/the-debate-eating-meat-at-the-hazon-food-conference
I have posted a number of responses.
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14. Update and Recent Comments on World Watch Article That Argues that Livestock Sector Causes At Least 51% of Human-Caused Greenhouse Gas Emissions
update by Robert Goodland (co-author of the original article) on the article in World Watch is at http://www.wellfedworld.org/PDF/FAOConsult12-09.pdf
Below are comments on the original article by Australia's Geoff Russell (who's been a co-author with Peter Singer on various material) -- which seems to have helped him get to the point of posting a column yesterday excerpted as follows (and visible in its entirety at http://theenergycollective.com/TheEnergyCollective/55860)):
Is livestock consumption exceeding plant growth?
In my last BNC post, I referred to an estimate just published as a WorldWatch report that put the impact of livestock on greenhouse forcings at about 51 percent [actually at least 51%, according to the article] of the global anthropogenic total. I didn’t analyse this figure, but suggested it wasn’t unreasonable to think that land clearing, feeding, watering, housing, slaughter, transport and cooking implicit in dealing with 700 million tonnes of livestock biomass could conceivably be responsible for half of the total climate impact of 335 million tonnes of human biomass. But I was waiting for more expert analysis and still am. Many of the additions over and above the 2006 Livestock’s Long Shadow (LLS) estimate rely on close knowledge of the precise details of the FAO’s statistical data collection processes.
But on theoretical grounds, one of the most contentious inclusions in the 51 percent figure is livestock respiration … the carbon dioxide that livestock exhale. On the face of it, this seems plain wrong. All of the carbon dioxide in livestock respiration comes from the atmosphere via photosynthesis in plants. So it’s simply part of the carbon cycle. Isn’t it? The WorldWatch authors have subsequently justified this a little further, re-citing evidence given in LLS which states that animal respiration plus soil carbon oxidation (co2 flowing into the atmosphere) exceeds the drawdown due to photosynthesis by one or two billion tonnes of carbon annually. In many cases it is livestock driving the loss of soil carbon by deforestation and desertification and given that the planet’s 700 million tonnes of livestock dwarf wildlife by a ratio of about 23:3, it is possible that the planet’s total plant biomass may be shrinking under livestock’s onslaught. This is the implication of the reduction of NPP noted above and the carbon flow imbalance just mentioned.
I say may be shrinking because it’s tough to measure things like global photosynthesis or global respiration, and the figures in LLS are not the same as the figures in the Austrian work. Close, but not the same. But if the respiration plus soil carbon losses really are outstripping photosynthesis, then including at least some livestock respiration in the ledger isn’t just reasonable, but mandatory.
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15. Getting Veg Info Into a Worldwide Travel Guide
Thanks to author and JVNA advisor dan Brook for the following message:
"Wikitravel is a project to create a free, complete, up-to-date, and reliable worldwide travel guide. ... written and edited by Wikitravellers from around the globe."
http://wikitravel.org/en/Main_Page
[from the Wikitravel web site.]
After using Wikitravel this summer, I had the idea that we should slightly (not overwhelmingly) vegify it.
For every city that we live in, used to live in, or have traveled to, we should make sure that there is one or two veg restaurants listed and, if there isn't, to add them. Likewise with veg hotels and other veg attractions, if any.
If we overdo it for any location, it could be a problem (though maybe not); if we do a little for many, many cities, it could help raise awareness while supporting veg restaurants and other veg businesses.
I'd be interested in your thoughts about this.
Please post/blog/forward/tweet/share where appropriate.
Peace,
Dan
Eco-Eating at www.brook.com/veg
The Vegetarian Mitzvah at www.brook.com/vegj
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The material on this site is provided for educational and informational purposes. It may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. It is being made available in an effort to advance the understanding of vegetarian, environmental, nutritional, health, economic, social justice and human rights issues etc. It is believed that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have an interest in using the included information for educational or research purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. The information on this site does not constitute legal, technical or medical advice.
1/5/2010 Special JVNA Online Newsletter
Shalom everyone,
Since Tu B’Shvat occurs on Shabbat (January 29-30) this Jewish year, I would like to suggest that we promote “Turning Tu B’Shvat into an Environmental Shabbat.” I think this is especially important this year as the world increasingly approaches an unprecedented climate catastrophe, and, as one example, Israel is suffering from the worst drought in its history and projections are for Israel to experience severe heat waves and floods, continued lack of adequate rainfall and an inundating of the coastal plain where most Israelis live by a rising Mediterranean Sea.
I hope that the material below will be helpful. The resources (items 7 - 10) were compiled some time ago by Jonathan Wolf. Also, much of the material below was originally written for previous times that Tu B’Shvat fell on a Shabbat, but I have tried to bring some of it up to date. Sorry for any repetition since some of the articles cover overlapping topics.
Please use the material for your own articles, letters to editors and talking points. Suggestions very welcome.
The items below are:
1. JVNA Press Release on Turning Tu B’Shvat Into an “Environmental Shabbat”
2. Celebrating Tu B'Shvat This Year [5770/2010]: Trees, Shabbat, and Israel's Ecology, [originally written for 2003] by Jonathan Wolf
3. Turning Tu B'Shvat into an "Environmental Shabbat"
4. Tu B'Shvat and Vegetarianism, by Richard Schwartz
4a. Tu B’Shvat Message: Many Important Jewish Lessons Can Be Learned From Scriptural Verses About Trees
5. Preserving the Sacred Environment: A religious imperative, by Richard Schwartz
6. Sample Letter to the Jewish Media re Turning Tu B’Shvat into an Environmental Shabbat
7. Resources for Tu B’Shvat and Environmental Issues, Compiled by Jonathan Wolf
8. Groups Working to Improve Israel's Environment, Compiled by Jonathan Wolf
9. More Resources for Tu B’Shvat, Compiled by Jonathan Wolf
10. Some Texts about Tu B’Shvat, Shabbat, the Environment, and the Land of Israel, Compiled by Jonathan Wolf
11. Sample Flyer for a Tu B’Shvat Seder
12. Sample Announcement for a Tu B’Shvat Seder
Some material has been deferred to a later update/newsletter to keep this one from being even longer.
[Materials in brackets like this [ ] within an article or forwarded message are my editorial notes/comments.]
Opinions expressed do not necessarily represent the views of the JVNA, unless otherwise indicated, but may be presented to increase awareness and/or to encourage respectful dialogue. Also, material re conferences, retreats, forums, trips, and other events does not necessarily imply endorsement by JVNA or endorsement of the kashrut, Shabbat observances, or any other Jewish observances, but may be presented for informational purposes. Please use e-mail addresses, telephone numbers, and web sites to get further information about any event that you are interested in. Also, JVNA does not necessarily agree with all positions of groups whose views are included or whose events are announced in this newsletter.
Making Tu B’Shvat into an Environmental Shabbat provides a wonderful opportunity to help get environmental issues onto the Jewish (and perhaps other) agendas. Please use the material below and additional material in the resource section to help plan a local Shabbat/Tu B’Shvat event in your area.
Thanks,
Richard
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1. JVNA Press Release on Turning Tu B’Shvat Into an “Environmental Shabbat”
JEWISH GROUP URGES THAT TU B’SHVAT BE CONSIDERED AN “ENVIRONMENTAL SHABBAT”
For Immediate Release:
January 5, 2010
Contact:
Richard H. Schwartz, President of the Jewish Vegetarians of North America (JVNA)
President@JewishVeg.com Phone: (718) 761-5876
Jewish Vegetarians of North America (JVNA) issued the following statement today:
In view of the major threats to Israel and, indeed, the entire world from global warming and other environmental problems, it is essential that the Jewish community join with others in responding, and an excellent time to start is Tu B’Shvat, which starts this year at sundown on Friday evening, January 29. This increasingly popular “New Year for the trees” should be considered a “Jewish Earth Day.” Since it occurs on Shabbat this year, we are initiating a campaign to turn it into an “Environmental Shabbat.”
With Israel facing the worst drought in its history, and with the Israeli Union for Environmental Defense projecting that, if present trends continue, global warming will result in Israel soon facing major heat waves, a reduction of rainfall of up to 30 percent, severe storms causing major flooding, and a rising Mediterranean Sea which would inundate the coastal plain where most Israelis live, rabbis and other Jewish leaders should support and join major efforts to combat global warming.
“It is urgent that tikkun olam—the healing and repair of the world -- be a central issue in synagogues, Jewish schools and other Jewish institutions,” stated Richard Schwartz, president of JVNA. “Judaism has splendid teachings on environmental conservation and sustainability, and it is essential that they be applied to respond to the many current environmental threats, in order to move our imperiled planet to a sustainable path.”
Consistent with the fact that all the foods at the traditional Tu B’Shvat seder are from plants, JVNA also urges rabbis and other Jewish leaders to make Jews aware of how plant-based diets are most consistent with basic Jewish mandates to preserve human health, treat animals compassionately, protect the environment, conserve natural resources and help hungry people.
According to a UN Food and Agricultural Organization 2006 report, animal-based agriculture emits more greenhouse gases (in CO2 equivalents) than all the cars, planes, ships and other means of transportation worldwide combined. The report projects that the number of farmed animals worldwide, currently about 60 billion, will double by 2050. If that happens, the increased greenhouse gas emissions would negate the effects of many positive changes that environmentalists support. An article in the November/December, 2009 World Watch magazine by two environmentalists argued that the livestock sector is responsible for at least 51 percent of human-induced greenhouse gas emissions. Hence a major societal shift to vegetarianism is imperative.
Further information about these issues can be found at the JVNA web site JewishVeg.com. JVNA will provide complimentary copies of its new documentary A SACRED DUTY: APPLYING JEWISH VALUES TO HELP HEAL THE WORLD and related materials to rabbis and other Jewish leaders who will contact them (mail@jewishVeg.com).
JVNA plans to contact rabbis and other Jewish leaders to urge them to make Tu B’Shvat an “Environmental Shabbat,” with special sermons, talks, panel discussions, environmentally-orientated meals and kiddushes, nature walks and/or other events consistent with Shabbat and Tu B’Shvat.
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Supporting material includes the following:
The threats are really worldwide. There are daily reports of severe droughts, storms, flooding and wildfires and about meltings of polar icecap s and glaciers. All this due to an average temperature increase of about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit in the past 100 years, and global climate scientists are projecting an increase of from 2 to 11 degrees Farhrenheit in the next 100 years, which would result in an unprecedented catastrophe for humanity.
Some climate scientists are warning that global warming could reach a tipping point and spin out of control in a few years, with disastrous consequences, unless major changes soon occur Al Gore pointed out that the United States must free itself from fossil fuels and switch to renewable energy sources by 2018. He stressed the urgency of the change by stating: ‘the survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk,’ and that ‘The future of human civilization is at stake.’
When we read daily reports of the effects of global climate change, such as record heat waves, severe flooding, widespread droughts, unprecedented numbers of wild fires, and the melting of glaciers and polar icecaps; when some climate scientists are warning that global climate change may spin out of control with disastrous consequences unless major changes are soon made; when a recent report indicated that our oceans may be virtually free of fish by 2050; when species of plants and animals are disappearing at the fastest rate in history; when it is projected that half of the world’s people will live in areas chronically short of water by 2050; it is essential that the Jewish community fulfill our mandate to be a “light unto the nations” and lead efforts to address these critical issues.
Richard H. Schwartz, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus, College of Staten Island Author of "Judaism and Vegetarianism," "Judaism and Global Survival," and "Mathematics and Global Survival," and over 130 articles at www.JewishVeg.com/schwartz
President of Jewish Vegetarians of North America (JVNA) www.JewishVeg.com
and Society of Ethical and Religious Vegetarians (SERV) www.serv-online.org
Associate Producer of A SACRED DUTY ( asacredduty.com) Director of Veg Climate Alliance (www.vegclimatealliance.org) president@JewishVeg.com
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2. Celebrating Tu B'Shvat This Year [5770/2010]: Trees, Shabbat, and Israel's Ecology, [originally written for 2003] by Jonathan Wolf
[Jonathan is one of the most knowledge people on Tu B’Shvat and its many ramifications. For many years, he organized and ran very successful Tu B’Shvat seders in his former Manhattan apartment.]
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The holiday of Tu B’Shvat is a minor one on the Jewish calendar. It appears nowhere in the Bible, and when it first appears in Jewish literature, in the Mishna, its very date is the subject of dispute. Yet today it is an occasion rich with symbolism and significance, because of what it represents: nature and the environment, and the bounty of the Land of Israel.
Tu B’Shvat originated as one of the four New Years prescribed in Jewish law [Mishna Rosh Hashana 1:1]. It was established as the New Year of Trees, a kind of dividing line of the fiscal year for prescribing tithes, orlah (the first 3 years of a tree’s life), and according to some authorities the shmitta (sabbatical) year. Hillel and Shammai disagreed on the date; the school of Hillel (as almost always) was victorious in setting it on the fifteenth of the month of Shvat, when the earth in the Holy Land begins to warm up, the water starts to flow through the ground and the sap to course through the trees, and early-blossoming trees like the Almond (shaked) burst into bloom.
After the destruction of the Temple, the tithe offerings ended and the Jews were dispersed: thus the agricultural laws of the Land of Israel did not apply in most Jewish communities. Tu B’Shvat became a time of celebration and commemoration, recollecting the days when the Jewish people lived on its own land, working to bring forth the fruit of that earth. Numerous customs evolved (such as the colorful “Hamishusar” in some Sephardic communities) and Jews recited blessings and ate fruits, if possible those grown in Israel.
Development of the Seder for Tu B’Shvat: In the 1500’s in the Galilee city of Safed (also called S’fat or Tzfat), identified in the Talmud as one of the Holy Cities in the Land, the circle of Kabbalists who were followers of Rabbi Isaac Luria (the “Ari”) developed a special liturgy for Tu B’Shvat [as they were also inventing the kabbalat shabat service for Friday evenings and the all-night Tikun for Shavuot and Hoshana Rabba]: the Seder Leil Tu B’Shvat. The Kabbalists would stay up all night on Tu B’Shvat reciting their Seder, based loosely on the Passover Seder, focusing on fruits, trees, brachot, and kavvanot: invocations of attention and blessing on the fate of the trees and their fruit during the coming year, similar to the prayers for human life and welfare recited on Rosh Hashana.
The text of the Kabbalists’ Seder included four cups of wine -- evolving in color from entirely white to red-with-a-drop-of-white; the tasting of 21 different fruits, beginning with the Seven Species which according to Deuteronomy 8:8 epitomize the produce of Land of Israel (wheat, barley, olives, dates, grapes, figs, and pomegranates), followed by fruits mentioned in the Bible, particularly in the Song of Songs (etrog, apple, walnut, almond), and the carob (long associated with Tu B’Shvat), pear (discussed in the Mishna), and other fruits and nuts. The order of the Seder was first published in the 1700’s in the volume Pri Etz Hadar, attributed to Rabbi Haim Vital, which details the wines, the fruits, and the passages from Bible, Midrash, Mishna, Talmud, and especially Zohar -- since the Kabbalists found mystical meaning in each reading and tasting. Their Seder also provided for eating from three types of fruits corresponding to three of the four Lurianic “worlds”: wholly edible fruits such as figs for olam habriya (the world of creation), fruits edible on the outside but with pits, such as cherries, representing the world of yetzira (formation), and fruits with outside shells but edible insides such as pistachios, symbolizing the world of asiyah (action). [The fourth kabbalistic world, atzilut (emanation) is considered to be beyond physical representation].
In the last century the Jewish pioneers coming to Ottoman and Mandatory Palestine adopted Tu B’Shvat as an occasion for planting trees as part of the mass Jewish return to the Land and its rebuilding and renewal. The Tu B’Shvat Seder, a ritual which had been little remembered or practiced in most communities, has been revived and reinvented in recent decades. Today, Tu B’Shvat has become an occasion for directing our thoughts and energies to the natural world, to God’s Creation and our assignment to “labor over and preserve” it [l’ovdah ul’shomrah – Genesis 2:15], and to the Land of Israel and its particular sanctity, importance, and fragility.
When Tu B’Shvat concides with Shabbat: The holiday can fall on any day of the week (except Friday or Sunday), and only occurs on Shabbat, as it does this time, every several years.
Nothing specific changes in the observance of Tu B’Shvat when it takes place on Shabbat. But it provides an occasion for a longer, more intensive Seder during or after Shabbat dinner or as part of an Oneg Shabbat gathering, and for Torah study, discussions, sermons, singing, children’s celebrations, divrei torah, and other moments in the course of Shabbat to turn attention to the holiday, to fruit and trees, to natural and environmental concerns in Judaism, and to the qualities of the Land of Israel.
When Tu B’Shvat occurs on Shabbat, it is an especially appropriate day to commemorate the magnificence of God’s handiwork and our responsibilities to care for it. The Sabbath is central to virtually all of the Torah’s insights and instructions concerning the Earth and its protection. The prohibitions and obligations which are part of Shabbat observance, according to many rabbinic sources, aim to take us away from our weekday preoccupation with changing and leaving our mark on the world: to make us withdraw from acquiring and restructuring, in order that we may reflect on and recognize the beauty and integrity of Creation. Shabbat is a foretaste of the World to Come, a day on which we accept and respect the world as it is, rather than trying to build or destroy elements within it. The Ten Commandments instruct us that not only people but animals must share in this Sabbath rest. The shmitta, the seventh year on which Jews in the Land of Israel are directed not to plant or harvest but to allow the land to lie fallow to renew itself, and to allow the poor to partake freely of the crops, is called ‘shabbat ha’aretz’ [Leviticus 25:6] – the Land’s Sabbath.
These themes of the splendors of God’s world, the beauty of the Land of Israel, and the joy and quietude of Shabbat come together in the lyrical imagery of the Song of Songs. That Biblical book is a song-cycle of romantic verses which glory in fruits and nuts and wines and spices [for example, verses 2:11-13; 4:11; 4:13-14; 7:12-14], in the valleys and vineyards and orchards of Israel, and in the marvels of nature in Spring (of which Tu B’Shvat, at least in Israel if not in chillier climes, is the herald). (Quotations from the Song of Songs abound in the text of the Kabbalists’ Seder for Tu B’Shvat [including verses 2:3; 2:4; 4:3; 6:11; 7:8; 8:5]). Because the Song of Songs is also (according to Rabbi Akiba in the Talmud) an allegory of the loving relationship of God and the Jewish people, it is customary to recite it at the beginning of Shabbat, the time of greatest intimacy between Jews and the Divine.
Create an Eco-Shabbat! When Tu B’Shvat falls on Shabbat as it does this year, it becomes an opportunity to dedicate the day to enjoying and recognizing the natural world, Israel, and our task of stewardship. Meals, lectures, nature hikes, children’s activities, services, seudah shlishit (the late Saturday afternoon meal), study groups: many periods during Shabbat can address and direct our thinking to the Torah’s teachings about the meaning of true Sabbath rest, our obligations to preserve our world for future generations, the delights and varieties of healthful foods which spring from the earth, and our ties to the historic Jewish homeland in Israel and its rivers and hillsides.
Every synagogue, campus Hillel, havurah, JCC, religious school, senior center, community, and family can invent and adapt its own expression of an Environmental Shabbat on Tu B’Shvat—whether Seder, party, speaker, festive meal, text learning, games, songs, stories, or all-night gathering. This Shabbat is a propitious and auspicious time for focusing on the earth and its wonders and the ways it supports us and we protect it. When Tu B’Shvat falls on Shabbat, it is always Shabbat Shira, on which we read the Songs at the Sea of Moses and the children of Israel, and of Miriam and all the women [Exodus 15:1-21] and the haftara of the Song of Deborah [Judges 5:1-31]; it is a Shabbat which is ideal for singing -- whether around a circle, at meals, or performed by cantor, choir, or children’s chorale – including songs of Israel, of trees and fruits, from the Song of Songs, or of the melodies of Creation.
The state of Israel’s environment today: The Land of Israel, central to the genesis of Tu B’Shvat, is not just the place where Jews and Judaism originated, or our future Messianic home: it is also a real country of soil and winds and a remarkable variety of different eco-systems. And that terrain is in terrible trouble. Israel’s air, water, and land are contaminated by ever-increasing pollution. In most of its rivers, fish can only live for a few minutes. The air quality in Jerusalem is projected to become worse than that of Mexico City by 2010. The severe shortage of water supplies is rapidly worsening, as is the problem of garbage and solid waste. The number of automobiles increased one hundredfold in recent decades, while in a small country ideally suited to railways, the entire system of public transportation is inadequate and underfunded. Israel’s toxic waste dumps are overflowing and improperly contained.
As part of an Environmental Shabbat on Tu B’Shvat, materials, speakers, and discussions on the many imminent threats to Israel’s environment can be arranged and programmed into the day.
Tzedaka and the Tree of Life: Central to the purpose of celebrating Tu B’Shvat, and of conducting the Tu B’Shvat Seder, are the concepts of gratitude, b’rakhot, and tzedaka. We pray on the New Year of Trees that it should be a healthy, bountiful year for the trees which feed us (particularly those in the Land of Israel for whose produce the legal holiday was created), and the Kabbalists’ Seder multiplies the opportunities for reciting blessings recognizing and thanking our Creator for the cornucopia of flavors and aromas which we ‘taste and see’. Jewish tradition establishes as the most fitting response to our own good fortune and satisfactions the sharing of our joy with others who are in greater need. The Zohar calls the process of giving tzedaka ‘Ilana d’Hayyey’ -- Tree of Life – for we magnify and certify our happiness and thankfulness by providing for fellow human beings and for needful causes. Because this Tu B’Shvat falls on Shabbat, it may be inappropriate to bring and give cash or checks on the day itself, but our communal festivities can and should include provisions to inform everyone of places and ways to give or send donations which mark and spread our festivity.
Once every few years, Tu B’Shvat and Shabbat come together, providing Jewish groups and communities with a perfect time to talk, study, celebrate, sing and deliberate together about the blessings for which we are grateful, the world we need to rescue, the Holy Land and its riches and dangers, the harmony of nature, and Sabbath peace.
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3. Turning Tu B'Shvat into an "Environmental Shabbat"
Richard H. Schwartz
Many contemporary Jews are increasingly looking at Tu B'Shvat as a Jewish “Earth Day,” and using Tu B'Shvat seders as occasions to discuss how Jewish values can be applied to reduce many of today's environmental threats. This is more important than ever today in view of the many environmental problems currently facing Israel and our planet.
Since Tu B’Shvat falls on a Shabbat this Hebrew year (January 29-30, 2010), it would be wonderful if many congregations treated it as an “Environmental Shabbat,” with observances that would increase the environmental awareness and activism of its members. This could be a great opportunity for education about environmental crises locally, nationally, and internationally, with perhaps a special emphasis in some congregations on environmental problems in Israel. It also could help energize our congregations and bring many Jews back to Jewish involvement.
With Israel facing the worst drought in its history, and with the Israeli Union for Environmental Defense projecting that, if present trends continue, global warming will result in Israel soon facing major heat waves, a reduction of rainfall of up to 30 percent, severe storms causing major flooding, and a rising Mediterranean Sea which would inundate the coastal plain where most Israelis live, rabbis and other Jewish leaders should support and join major efforts to combat global warming.
The threats are really worldwide. There are daily reports of severe droughts, storms, flooding and wildfires and about meltings of polar icecap s and glaciers. All this due to an average temperature increase of about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit in the past 100 years, and global climate scientists are projecting an increase of from 2 to 11 degrees Farhrenheit in the next 100 years, which would result in an unprecedented catastrophe for humanity.
Some climate scientists are warning that global warming could reach a tipping point and spin out of control in a few years, with disastrous consequences, unless major changes soon occur Al Gore pointed out that the United States must free itself from fossil fuels and switch to renewable energy sources by 2018. He stressed the urgency of the change by stating: ‘the survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk,’ and that ‘The future of human civilization is at stake.’
When we read daily reports of the effects of global climate change, such as record heat waves, severe flooding, widespread droughts, unprecedented numbers of wild fires, and the melting of glaciers and polar icecaps; when some climate scientists are warning that global climate change may spin out of control with disastrous consequences unless major changes are soon made; when a recent report indicated that our oceans may be virtually free of fish by 2050; when species of plants and animals are disappearing at the fastest rate in history; when it is projected that half of the world’s people will live in areas chronically short of water by 2050; it is essential that the Jewish community fulfill our mandate to be a “light unto the nations” and lead efforts to address these critical issues.
These environmental problems are largely due to the fact that the ways of the world are completely contrary to Jewish values:
1. Judaism teaches that “The Earth is the Lord’s” (Psalms 24:1), and that we are to be partners with God in protecting the environment. But today's philosophy is that the earth is to be exploited for maximum profit, regardless of the long-range ecological consequences.
2. Judaism stresses bal tashchit, that we are not to waste or unnecessarily destroy anything of value. By contrast, wastefulness in the United States is so great that, with less than 5% of the world's people we use about a third of the world's resources, and this has a major impact on pollution and resource scarcities.
It is urgent that Torah values be applied toward the solution of current environmental problems. This means, for example: an energy policy based not on dangerous energy sources, but on CARE (conservation and renewable energy), consistent with Jewish teachings on preserving the environment, conserving resources, creating jobs, protecting human lives, and considering future generations.
Tu B'Shvat is the New Year for Trees, the date on which the fate of trees is decided for the coming year. Hence, it is an ideal time to consider the rapid destruction of tropical rain forests and other valuable habitats. It is interesting that the prohibition bal tashchit ("thou shalt not destroy") is based on concern for fruit-bearing trees, since the Torah indicates that even in war time fruit trees may not be destroyed in order to build battering rams to attack an enemy fortification (Deuteronomy 20:19.20). This teaching was extended by the Jewish sages to prohibit the destruction, complete or incomplete, direct or indirect, of all objects of potential benefit to people. Imagine the impact if this prohibition was put into practice by society today!
Some possibilities for an "Environmental Shabbat" include
1. A Tu B'Shvat seder on Friday night, with a discussion or guest speaker on an environmental topic;
2. A sermon on Jewish environmental teachings on Shabbat morning;
3. An environmentally-conscious kiddush and/or lunch, with a minimum of waste and an environmental d’var Torah;
4. A discussion or a guest speaker on an environmental topic after morning services (possibly as part of a kiddush) or between Mincha and Maariv.
There are many additional creative ideas consistent with Jewish tradition and Shabbat that can be considered.
It would be wonderful if Jews used Tu B’Shvat and activities related to this increasingly important holiday, as occasions to start to make tikkun olam, the repair and healing of the planet, a central focus in Jewish life today. This is essential to help move our precious, but imperiled, planet to a more sustainable path.
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There is much valuable background material on Jewish teachings on environmental issues and Tu B‘Shvat observances at the web sites of COEJL (Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life) (www.coejl.org) and Canfei Nesharim (www.CanfeiNesharim.org).
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4. Tu B'Shvat and Vegetarianism, by Richard Schwartz
Tu B'Shvat is arguably the most vegetarian of Jewish holidays, because of its many connections to vegetarian themes and concepts:
1. The Tu B'Shvat Seder in which fruits and nuts are eaten, along with the singing of songs and the recitation of Biblical verses related to trees and fruits, is the only sacred meal where only vegetarian, actually vegan, foods, are eaten as part of the ritual. This is consistent with the diet in the Garden of Eden, as indicated by God's first, completely vegetarian, dietary law:
And God said: "Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree that has seed-yielding fruit--to you it shall be for food." (Gen.1:29)
2. The Talmud refers to Tu B'Shvat as the New Year for Trees. It is considered to be the date on which the fate of trees is decided for the coming year. In recent years, one of the prime ways of celebrating Tu B'Shvat, especially in Israel, is through the planting of trees. Vegetarianism also reflects a concern for trees. One of the prime reasons for the destruction of tropical rain forests today is to create pasture land and areas to grow feed crops for cattle. To save an estimated 5 cents on each imported fast food hamburger, we are destroying forest areas in countries such as Brazil and Costa Rica, where at least half of the world's species of plants and animals live, and threatening the stability of the world's climate. It has been estimated that every vegetarian saves an acre of forest per year.
1. Both Tu B'Shvat and vegetarianism are connected to today's environmental concerns. Many contemporary Jews look on Tu B'Shvat as a Jewish earth day, and use Tu B'Shvat seders as occasions to discuss how Jewish values can be applied to reduce many of today's ecological threats.
When God created the world, he was able to say, "It is very good" (Genesis 1:31). Everything was in harmony as God had planned, the waters were clean, the air was pure. However, what must God think about the world today? What must God think when the rain he sends to nourish our crops is often acid rain due to the many chemicals poured into the air by our industries? when the abundance of species of plants and animals that He created are becoming extinct in tropical rain forests and other threatened habitats, before we are even been able to catalog them? when the fertile soil that He provided is rapidly being depleted and eroded? when the climatic conditions that He designed to meet our needs are threatened by global warming?
An ancient midrash has become all too relevant today:
In the hour when the Holy one, blessed be He, created the first person, He showed him the trees in the Garden of Eden, and said to him: "See My works, how fine they are; Now all that I have created, I created for your benefit. Think upon this and do not corrupt and destroy My world, For if you destroy it, there is no one to restore it after you." Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7:28
Today's environmental threats can be compared in many ways to the Biblical ten plagues, which are in the Torah portions in the weeks immediately preceding Tu B'Shvat: When we consider the threats to our land, water, and air, pesticides and other chemical pollutants, resource scarcities, threats to our climate, etc., we can easily enumerate ten modern "plagues". The Egyptians were subjected to one plague at a time, while the modern plagues are threatening us simultaneously. The Jews in Goshen were spared the Biblical plagues, while every person on earth is imperiled by the modern plagues. Instead of an ancient Pharoah's heart being hardened, our hearts today have been hardened by the greed, materialism, and waste that are at the root of current environmental threats. God provided the Biblical plagues to free the Israelites, while today we must apply God's teachings in order to save ourselves and our precious but endangered planet.
The Talmudic sages assert that people's role is to enhance the world as "co-partners of God in the work of creation" (Shabbat 10a). They indicated great concern about preserving the environment and preventing pollution. They state: "It is forbidden to live in a town which has no garden or greenery" (Kiddushin 4:12; 66d). Threshing floors had to be placed far enough from a town so that it would not be dirtied by chaff carried by winds (Baba Batra 2:8). Tanneries had to be kept at least 50 cubits from a town and could be placed only on the east side of a town, so that odors would not be carried by the prevailing winds from the west (Baba Batra 2:8,9). The rabbis express a sense of sanctity toward the environment: "the atmosphere (air) of the land of Israel makes one wise" (Baba Batra 158b). Again, vegetarianism is consistent with this important Jewish environmental concern, since modern intensive livestock agriculture contributes to many current environmental problems, including soil erosion and depletion, air and water pollution, the destruction of habitats, and global warming.
4. Both Tu B'Shvat and vegetarianism embody the important teaching that "The earth is the Lord's" (Psalm. 24:1) and that people are to be stewards of the earth, to see that its produce is available for all God's children. Property is a sacred trust given by God; it must be used to fulfill God's purposes. No person has absolute or exclusive control over his or her possessions. The concept that people have custodial care of the earth, as opposed to ownership, is illustrated by this ancient story:
Two men were fighting over a piece of land. Each claimed ownership and bolstered his claim with apparent proof. To resolve their differences, they agreed to put the case before the rabbi. The rabbi listened but could come to no decision because both seemed to be right. Finally he said, "Since I cannot decide to whom this land belongs, let us ask the land." He put his ear to the ground and, after a moment, straightened up. "Gentlemen, the land says it belongs to neither of you but that you belong to it."
With their concern about the preservation and expansion of forests and their focus on plant-based foods, both Tu B'Shvat and vegetarianism, reflect this important Jewish teaching.
5. Tu B'Shvat and vegetarianism both reflect the Torah mandate that we are not to waste or destroy unnecessarily anything of value. It is interesting that this prohibition, called bal tashchit ("thou shalt not destroy") is based on concern for fruit-bearing trees, as indicated in the following Torah statement: When thou shalt besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, thou shall not destroy (lo tashchit) the trees thereof by wielding an ax against them; for thou mayest eat of them but thou shalt not cut them down; for is the tree of the field man, that it should be besieged of thee? Only the trees of which thou knoweth that they are not trees for food, them thou mayest destroy and cut down, that thou mayest build bulwarks against the city that maketh war with thee, until it fall. (Deut. 20:19-20)
This prohibition against destroying fruit-bearing trees in time of warfare was extended by the Jewish sages. It it forbidden to cut down even a barren tree or to waste anything if no useful purpose is accomplished (Sefer Ha-Chinuch 530). The sages of the Talmud made a general prohibition against waste: "Whoever breaks vessels or tears garments, or destroys a building, or clogs up a fountain, or destroys food violates the prohibition of bal tashchit" (Kiddushin 32a). In summary, bal tashchit prohibits the destruction, complete or incomplete, direct or indirect, of all objects of potential benefit to people. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch states that bal tashchit is the first and most general call of God: We are to "regard things as God's property and use them with a sense of responsibility for wise human purposes. Destroy nothing! Waste nothing!" (Horeb; Chapter 56, #401) He indicates that destruction includes using more things (or things of greater value) than is necessary to obtain one's aim. (Horeb; Chapter 56, #399) The important Torah mandate of bal tashchit is consistent with vegetarianism, since, compared to plant-based diets, animal -centered diets require far more land, water, energy, and other agricultural resources.
6. Tu B'Shvat reflects a concern about future generations. In ancient times it was a custom to plant a cedar sapling on the birth of a boy and a cypress sapling on the birth of a girl. The cedar symbolized strength and stature of a man, while the cypress signified the fragrance and gentleness of a woman. When the children were old enough, it was their task to care for the trees that were planted in their honor. It was hoped that branches from both types of trees would form part of the chupah (bridal canopy) when the children married. Another example of the Jewish concern for the future that is expressed through the planting of trees is in the following story: Choni (the rainmaker) was walking along a road when he saw an old man planting a carob tree. Choni asked him: "How many years will it take for this tree to yield fruit?" The man answered that it would take seventy years. Choni then asked: "Are you so healthy a man that you expect to live that length of time and eat of its fruit?" The man answered: "I found a fruitful world because my ancestors planned for me. So I will do the same for my children." Vegetarianism also reflects concern about the future since this diet puts a minimum of strain on the earth and its ecosystems and requires far less water, land, energy, and other scarce agricultural resources than animal-centered diets.
7. It is customary to recite Psalm 104, as well as other psalms, on Tu B'Shvat. Psalm 104 indicates how God's concern and care extends to all creatures, and illustrates that God created the entire earth as a unity, in ecological balance:...Thou [God] art the One Who sends forth springs into brooks, that they may run between mountains,To give drink to every beast of the fields; the creatures of the forest quench their thirst.Beside them dwell the fowl of the heavens;...Thou art He Who waters the mountains from His upper chambers;...Thou art He Who causes the grass to spring up for the cattle and herb, for the service of man, to bring forth bread from the earth....How manifold art Thy works, O Lord! In wisdom hast Thou made them all; the earth is full of Thy property....
Vegetarianism also reflects concern for animals and all of God's creation, since for many people it is a refusal to take part in a system that involves the cruel treatment and slaughter of 10 billion farmed animals in the United States alone annually (60 billion worldwide), and, as indicated above, that puts so much stress on the earth and its resources.
8. Both Tu B'Shvat and vegetarianism are becoming increasingly popular today; Tu B'Shvat because of an increasing interest in and concern about nature and environmental issues, and vegetarianism because of increasing concern about health, the treatment of animals, and also the environment and the proper use of natural resources.
9. On Tu B'Shvat , the sap begins to fill the trees and their lives are renewed for another year of blossom and fruit. A shift toward vegetarianism means, in a sense, that there is an increased feeling of concern for the earth and all its inhabitants, and there is a renewal of the world's people's concerns about more life-sustaining approaches.
In 1993, over 1,670 scientists, including 104 Nobel laureates - a majority of the living recipients of the prize in the sciences - signed a "World Scientists' Warning To Humanity." Their introduction stated: "Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course. Human activities inflict harsh and often irreversible damage on the environment and on critical resources. If not checked, many of our current practices put at serious risk the future that we wish for human society and the plant and animal kingdoms, and may so alter the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we know. Fundamental changes are urgent if we are to avoid the collision our present course will bring about." The scientists' analysis discussed threats to the atmosphere, water resources, oceans, soil, living species, and forests. Their warning: "we the undersigned, senior members of the world's scientific community, hereby warn all humanity of what lies ahead. A great change in our stewardship of the earth and the life on it is required, if vast human misery is to be avoided.”
With the world's ecosystems threatened as never before, it is important that Jews increasingly discover the important ecological messages of Tu B'Shvat. Similarly, it is also urgent that Jews and others recognize that a shift toward vegetarianism, the diet most consistent with Tu B'Shvat, is not only an important individual choice today, but increasingly it is a Jewish imperative since the realities of modern intensive livestock agriculture and the consumption of animal products are inconsistent with many basic Jewish values, as well as a societal imperative, necessary for economic and ecological stability.
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4a. Tu B’Shvat Message: Many Important Jewish Lessons Can Be Learned From Scriptural Verses About Trees
Tu B’Shvat is considered the birthday for trees. Hence, it is a good time to consider scriptural verses about trees and the lessons they can teach us. Below are a few:
An important lesson involves what the mission of Jews should be.
In the early chapters of the Book of Exodus, we read about some very dramatic events: the birth of Moses; the examples of him opposing oppression, whether to Jews or non-Jews; Moshe’s encounter with God at the Burning Bush; the ten plagues that afflicted the Egyptians; the Exodus; the crossing of the Sea and the drowning of the Egyptians; and the songs of triumph and exaltation of Moses and then Miriam.
After these very dramatic events, there is a verse that seems almost anticlimactic: “And they came to Elim, where were 12 springs of water and 70 palm trees; and they encamped here by the waters.”
One might wonder why we need to know about the waters and the trees. But, Rabeynu Bachya, a Jewish philosopher in the Middle Ages, found a deep message. He stated that the 12 springs represented: the 12 tribes and the 70 palm trees represented the 70 nations in biblical times. He stated that just as the 12 springs nourished the 70 palm trees, Jews who are descended from these 12 tribes should nourish and inspire the nations of the world. So this should be our role today – to be a light unto the nations, a kingdom of priests, a holy people, God’s witnesses.
To carry out this mission, we have to know what issues to focus on, and an ancient midrash (rabbinic commentary) about trees provides some insight.
In the hour when the Holy one, blessed be He, created the first person, He showed him the trees in the Garden of Eden, and said to him: "See My works, how fine they are; Now all that I have created, I created for your benefit. Think upon this and do not corrupt and destroy My world, for if you destroy it, there is no one to restore it after you." [Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7:28]
This has become all too relevant today, as the world is threatened as perhaps never before by climate change and many environmental problems.
A Talmudic story about planting a tree teaches about the importance of considering future generations:
While the sage Choni was walking along a road, he saw a man planting a carob tree. Choni asked him: "How long will it take for this tree to bear fruit?" "Seventy years," replied the man. Choni then asked: "Are you so healthy a man that you expect to live that length of time and eat its fruit?" The man answered: "I found a fruitful world because my ancestors planted it for me. Likewise, I am planted for my children." (Ta’anis 23b)
A Torah verse about trees provides insight into the importance of conserving resources:
When you shall besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, you shall not destroy (lo tashchit) the trees thereof by wielding an ax against them; for you may eat of them. You shall not cut them down; for is the tree of the field man, that it should be besieged by you? Only the trees of which you know that they are not trees for food, them you may destroy and cut down, that you may build bulwarks against the city that makes war with you, until it fall. Deuteronomy 20:19,20
The Talmudic sages took this specific teaching and converted into a general prohibition (bal tashchit) against wasting or unnecessarily destroying anything of value.
Another Talmudic verse uses trees as a metaphor to discuss the relative importance of learning and deeds:
When a person’s wisdom exceeds his good deeds, to what may he be compared? To a tree with many branches but few roots. A wind blows, uproots it and topples it over . . . However, when a person’s good deeds exceed his wisdom, to what may he be compared? To a tree with few branches but with many roots. All the winds of the world may blow against it, yet they cannot move it from its place . . . (Ethics of the Fathers 3:22)
There are two puzzling statements related to trees that provide significant lessons:
Rabbi Yohasan Ben Zakkai said: If you are in the midst of planting a tree and word reaches you that the Messiah has arrived, do not interrupt your work; first finish your planting and only then go out to welcome the Messiah. (Avot de-Rabbi Nathan)
Perhaps a lesson here is that there have been many false Messiahs in Jewish history and it might be good to be somewhat skeptical, but carrying on with the everyday work of the world is always important.
Rabbi Ya'akov says: One, who while walking along the way, reviewing his studies, breaks off from his study and says, "How beautiful is that tree! How beautiful is that plowed field!" Scripture regards him as if he has forfeited his soul (Ethics of the Fathers, 3:7).
Perhaps the lesson in this apparently harsh teaching is that there should be no separation between Torah learning and appreciation of nature and one who considers them as two separate categories will be punished.
A Torah verse about trees in the Garden of Eden provides insights into God’s preferred diet for humans.
And God said: "Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree that has seed-yielding fruit -- to you it shall be for food." (Genesis 1:29)
Based on the prophecy of Isaiah that in the Messianic period, “The wolf will dwell with the lamb, . . . the lion will eat straw like the ox, . . . and no one shall hurt nor destroy on all of God’s holy mountain,” Rabbi Abraham Isaac Hakohen Kook, first Chief Rabbi of pre-state Israel thought that this other ideal time would be vegetarian when
Everyone will sit under their vine and fig tree and none shall make them afraid; for the Lord of Hosts has spoken. (Micah 4:4)
Finally, a talmudic story about blessing a tree provides a model for blessing people:
A man was traveling through the desert, hungry, thirsty, and tired, when he came upon a tree bearing luscious fruit and affording plenty of shade, underneath which ran a spring of water. He ate of the fruit, drank of the water, and rested beneath the shade.
When he was about to leave he turned to the tree and said: 'Tree, oh, tree, with what should I bless you? "Should I bless you that your fruit be sweet? Your fruit is already sweet. "Should I bless you that your shade be plentiful? Your shade is plentiful. That a spring of water should run beneath you? A spring of water runs beneath you."
"There is one thing with which I can bless you: May it be God's will that all the trees planted from your seed should be like you . . . (Ta’anit 5b)
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5. Preserving the Sacred Environment: A religious imperative, by Richard Schwartz
Tu B'Shvat is connected to today's environmental concerns. Many contemporary Jews look upon the day as a Jewish earth day, a day on which to discuss and focus on ecological threats — destruction of tropical rain forests; global climate change; acid rain poured into the air by our industries; a rapidly depleted ozone layer; plants and animals quickly becoming extinct; depleted soil. [1]
An ancient midrash has become all too relevant: "In the hour when the Holy one, blessed be He, created the first person, He showed him the trees in the Garden of Eden, and said to him: "See My works, how fine they are; Now all that I have created, I created for your benefit. Think upon this and do not corrupt and destroy My world, For if you destroy it, there is no one to restore it after you." [2]
Today's environmental threats can be compared in many ways to the Biblical ten plagues, which appear in the Torah portions read on the Shabbatot immediately preceding Tu B'Shvat. When we consider the threats to our land, water, and air, pesticides and other chemical pollutants, resource scarcities, threats to our climate, etc., we can easily enumerate ten modern "plagues." Like the ancient Pharaoh, our hearts have been hardened by the greed, materialism, and waste that are at the root of current environmental threats.
The sacred environment
The Talmudic sages express a sense of sanctity toward the environment: "The atmosphere (air) of the land of Israel makes one wise." [3] So, too, do they assert that people's role is to enhance the world as "co-partners of God in the work of creation." [4] The rabbis indicate great concern for preserving the environment and preventing pollution:
"It is forbidden to live in a town which has no garden or greenery." [5]
Threshing floors are to be placed far enough from a town so that the town is not dirtied by chaff carried by winds. [6]
Tanneries are to be kept at least 50 cubits from a town and to be placed only on its eastern side, so that odors are not carried by the prevailing winds from the west. [7]
"The earth is the Lord's" [8]
We are the stewards of God's earth, responsible to see that its produce is available for all God's children. Property is a sacred trust given by God; it must be used to fulfill God's purposes. The story is told of two men who were fighting over a piece of land. Each claimed ownership and bolstered his claim with apparent proof. To resolve their differences, they agreed to put the case before the rabbi. The rabbi listened but could come to no decision because both seemed to be right. Finally he said, "Since I cannot decide to whom this land belongs, let us ask the land." He put his ear to the ground and, after a moment, straightened up. "Gentlemen, the land says it belongs to neither of you but that you belong to it." [9]
"Thou shall not destroy"
The prohibition not to waste or destroy unnecessarily anything of value (bal tashhit - "thou shalt not destroy") is based on concern for fruit-bearing trees, as indicated in the following Torah statement: "When in your war against a city you have to besiege it a long time in order to capture it, you must not destroy its trees, wielding the ax against them. You may eat of them, but you must not cut them down. Are trees of the field human to withdraw before you under siege? Only trees that you know to not yield food may be destroyed; you may cut them down for constructing siege works against the city that is waging war on you, until it has been destroyed." [10]
This prohibition against destroying fruit-bearing trees in time of warfare was extended by the Jewish sages. It it forbidden to cut down even a barren tree or to waste anything if no useful purpose is accomplished. [11] The sages of the Talmud made a general prohibition against waste: "Whoever breaks vessels or tears garments, or destroys a building, or clogs up a fountain, or destroys food violates the prohibition of bal tashchit" [12]
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, 19th century philosopher and author, states that bal tashhit is the first and most general call of God: We are to "regard things as God's property and use them with a sense of responsibility for wise human purposes. Destroy nothing! Waste nothing!" He indicates further that destruction includes using more things (or things of greater value) than are necessary to obtain one's aim. [13]
Ecological balance
It has become customary to recite Psalms on Tu B’Shvat, among them Psalm 104. This Psalm speaks of God's concern and care extended to all creatures, and illustrates that God created the entire earth as a unity, in ecological balance: "You make springs gush forth in torrents;; they make their way between the hills, giving drink to all the wild beasts; the wild asses slake their thirst. The birds of the sky dwell beside them and sing among the foliage. You water the mountains from Your lofts; the earth is sated from the fruit of Your work. You make the grass grow for the cattle, and herbage for man's labor, that he may get food out of the earth, wine that cheers the hearts of men, oil that makes the face shine, and bread that sustains man's life." [14]
Tu B'Shvat is indeed an appropriate time to apply Judaism's powerful environmental teachings to help move our precious, but imperiled, planet to a more sustainable path.
[1] See articles in the ecology section at JewishVeg.com/schwartz
[2] Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7:28
[3] Baba Batra 158b
[4] Shabbat 10a
[5] Kiddushin 4:12; 66d
[6] Baba Batra 2:8
[7] Baba Batra 2:8,9
[8] Psalms 24:1
[9] Story told by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin in "Biblical Ecology, a Jewish View," a television documentary directed by Mitchell Chalak and Jonathan Rosen
[10] Deut. 20:19-20; JPS translation
[11] Sefer Ha-Chinuch 530
[12] Kiddushin 32a
[13] Horeb; Chapter 56
[14] Psalm 104: 10-15 See: Arthur Waskow, Seasons of Our Joy: A Creative Guide to the Jewish Holidays (Boston: Beacon Press, 1982)
Richard H. Schwartz, PhD, Professor Emeritus, College of Staten Island, is author of Judaism and Vegetarianism, Judaism and Global Survival, and Mathematics and Global Survival. He has over 140 articles and 25 podcasts of his talks and interviews on his Jewish Vegetarianism website (JewishVeg.com/schwartz).
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6. Sample Letter to the Jewish Media re Turning Tu B’Shvat into an Environmental Shabbat
Dear editor,
Many contemporary Jews look on Tu B'Shvat (January 29-30 this year) as a Jewish ‘Earth Day,’ and use Tu B'Shvat seders as occasions to discuss how Jewish values can be applied to reduce many of today's ecological threats. This is more important than ever in view of the many environmental threats currently facing our planet.
While Judaism teaches that “The Earth is the Lord’s” (Psalms 24:1), and that we are to be partners with God in preserving the environment, there are daily news reports about water shortages, air and water pollution, the depletion of the ozone layer, and soil erosion and depletion. Tu B'Shvat is the New Year for Trees, the date on which the fate of trees is decided for the coming year. Hence, it is an ideal time to consider the rapid destruction of tropical rain forests and other valuable habitats. While Israel has made remarkable progress in many areas, it faces chronic droughts, very badly polluted rivers, severe air pollution in its major cities and industrial areas, rapidly declining open space, congested roads, and an inadequate mass transit system.
In view of the above and much more, I urge Jews to use Tu B’Shvat and activities related to this increasingly important holiday, as occasions to start to make tikkun olam, the repair and healing of the planet, a central focus in Jewish life today.
Since Tu B’Shvat falls on a Shabbat this Hebrew year, it would be wonderful if many congregations treated it as an “Environmental Shabbat” with observances that would increase the environmental awareness and activism of its members. This could be a great opportunity for education about environmental crises locally, nationally, and internationally, with perhaps a special emphasis in some congregations on environmental problems in Israel. It also could help energize our congregations and bring many Jews back to Jewish involvement.
Very truly yours,
Richard H. Schwartz, Ph.D.
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7. Resources for Tu B’Shvat and Environmental Issues, Compiled by Jonathan Wolf
(may need some updating):
A. WEBSITES
Adam Teva V'Din: The Israel Union for Environmental Defense
http://www.iued.org/il/eng/
Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL)
http://www.coejl.org/
Ministry of Environment (Israel) http://www.environment.gov.il
http://www.israel-mfa.gov.il/gov/environ.html
Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel
http://www.spni.org/
Richard Schwartz articles http://jewishveg.com/schwartz
Shalom Center
Sierra Club
Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) http://www.ucsusa.org/
U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) http://www.epa.gov
Many Links to Tu B’Shvat http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=Tu+B%27Shvat&btnG=Google+Search
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B. BOOKS
Buxbaum, Yitzhak. A Person Is Like a Tree: A Sourcebook for Tu B’Shvat. Northvale, NJ; Jerusalem: Jason Aronson, 2000.
Schwartz, Richard H. Judaism and Global Survival. New York: Lantern Books, 2002. (A free copy of this book will be sent to very rabbi who contacts the author at rschw12345@aol.com and indicates that it will be used as background for a Tu B’Shvat environmental program.)
Waskow, Arthur, editor. Torah of the Earth: Exploring 4,000 Years of Ecology in Jewish Thought. Volumes 1 and 2. Woodstock, Vermont: Jewish Lights Publishing, 2000.
Waskow, Arthur, et al. Trees, Earth, and Torah: A Tu B’Shvat Anthology. Philadelphia: Jewish Publishing Society, 1999.
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8. Groups Working to Improve Israel's Environment, Compiled by Jonathan Wolf
(may need some updating):
Israel’s environmental movement includes a number of organizations which are fighting to save the ecology of Israel. They can inform you about current crises and activities, and will provide books, pamphlets, reports, and contacts. You may also choose, in connection with Tu B’Shvat programs, to raise or donate contributions to support their vital projects.
Neot Kedumim: The Biblical Nature Reserve: On any visit to Israel, a trip to Neot Kedumim is delightful: the site (not far from Ben Gurion airport) features the trees and plants of the Bible and Talmud, including special areas for the Seven Species, the flora of the Song of Songs, and the landscape of our slavery in Egypt. Neot Kedumim is also a center for research and publication on environmental issues and natural history in Jewish sources, including extensive materials about Tu B’Shvat. You can order such superb works as the books Nature In Our Biblical Heritage and Tree and Shrub in Our Biblical Heritage and the booklet Ecology in the Bible from American Friends of Neot Kedumim in Halcott Center, NY. Phone (845) 254-5031 or fax (845) 254-9836. Investigate the Nature Reserve or plan trips there at their website:
www.neot-kedumim.org.il
The Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (Hevra L’haganat HaTeva): reaches more Israelis than any other Non-Governmental Organization (and, proportionately, more citizens than any NGO in the world) through its programs in schools, hikes and trips, field study centers, and grass-roots group, the Eco-Activists (Shomrei HaSviva). Severe cutbacks in government spending because of the economic and security crises are threatening SPNI’s important programs. To join, learn about eco-tourism in Israel, or become active in their efforts, visit their English-language website: www.teva.org.il/e
The Israel Union for Environmental Defense [IUED] (Adam Teva v’Din): is Israel’s leading environmental advocacy group which fights pollution, unregulated industry, and unplanned development through litigation, legislation, and citizen organizing. To find out about ongoing endeavors on clean air, recycling, coastlines, toxic wastes, the absurd but actual artificial-islands plans, and many other areas, and to sign up for their monthly E-news updates, contact www.iued.org.il
Heschel Center for Environmental Learning and Leadership: Last year, we celebrated the thirtieth yahrzeit of Abraham Joshua Heschel, after whom the Center was named. In the spirit of Rabbi Heschel’s notion that the magnificence of Creation should imbue us with a “sense of wonder” and awe at God’s grace and wisdom, the Heschel Center’s website features numerous on-line articles and pamphlets on Judaism and environmental education, as well as studies conducted in cooperation with the Worldwatch Institute on the state of Israel’s environment -- including the recent report on “Air Pollution and Public Health in Israel”. www.heschelcenter.org
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9. More Resources for Tu B’Shvat, Compiled by Jonathan Wolf
A Person Is Like a Tree: A Sourcebook for Tu Beshvat by Yitzhak Buxbaum (New York: Jason Aronson, 2000 ) is the best book available about the origins of the holiday and the Seder, including extensive discussion of the kabbalistic intentions and orientation of the Seder’s S’fat-based creators. It can be ordered through the website of its publisher: www.aronson.com or by contacting the author at yitzhak@att.net.
Trees, Earth, and Torah: A Tu B’Shvat Anthology, Edited by Ari Elon, Naomi Mara Hyman, and Arthur Waskow (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1999) includes articles on ecology in Biblical and Talmudic Judaism, modern ‘Eco-Judaism”, and understanding and celebrating Tu B’Shvat.
Tu Bi-shvat and Purim Melodies An excellent book of the music and words to songs of the holiday, along with an accompanying cassette of the songs. Available at a terrific discount from the website of its publisher, Tara Publications: www.Jewishmusic.com
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10. Some Texts about Tu B’Shvat, Shabbat, the Environment, and the Land of Israel, Compiled by Jonathan Wolf
Tu B’Shvat: The first day of the month of Nissan is Rosh Hashana (the beginning of the year) concerning [counting the length of the reign of] kings and [the order of the] Festivals [since Passover, in Nissan, is counted as the first].
The first day of Elul is Rosh Hashana for the tithing of animals.
The first of Tishrei is Rosh Hashana for [marking the beginning of] years, for shmitta (sabbatical) and yovel (jubilee) years, and for plants and vegetables.
The first of Shvat is Rosh Hashana for trees. So says the house of Shammai; the house of Hillel says, the fifteenth of that month.
-Mishna Rosh Hashana 1:1
Any tree which puts forth its fruit before Tu B’shvat has its fruit counted in the past year; if afterward, then in the coming year
-Tosefta Shvi’it 4:20
Environmentalism in Torah: When you besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to conquer it, you shall not destroy [lo tash’hit] the trees thereof by wielding an ax against them. You may eat of them but you shall not cut them down; for is the tree of the field a person, that it should be besieged by you? [Alternative translations: For a person is like a tree of the field, to come before you in the siege. Or: For a person (stays alive by) the tree of the field…]. Only the trees which you know that they are not trees for food, those you may destroy and cut down, in order to build bulwarks against the city that makes war with you, until it fall.
-Deuteronomy 20:19-20
The purpose of the mitzva [above, of bal tash’hit] is to teach us to love that which is good and worthwhile and to cling to it, so that good becomes a part of us and we avoid all that is evil and destructive. This is the way of the righteous and those who improve society, who love peace and rejoice in the good in people and bring them closer to Torah: that nothing, not even a grain of mustard, should be lost to the world, that they should regret any loss or destruction that they see, and if possible to prevent any destruction that they can. Not so are the wicked, who are like demons, who rejoice in the destruction of the world, and they thus destroy themselves.
-Sefer HaHinukh, mitzva #529
Shabbat: Remember the day of Shabbat to sanctify it. Seven days you should work and do all your labor, but the seventh day is for your God: you shall not do any labor, you and your son and your daughter and your male and female servant and your animals and your foreigner in your gates. For in seven days Adonai made the heaven and earth and the sea and everything in them, but He rested on the seventh day. Therefore Adonai blessed the Shabbat day and sanctified it.
-Exodus 20:8-11
When you come to the Land which I am giving to you, the land shall observe a Shabbat to Adonai. Six years you will plant your fields and six years you will prune your vineyards, and you will gather its produce. But on the seventh year is a great Shabbat for the land, a Shabbat to Adonai; you shall not plant your field not prune your vineyard. You shall not reap what grows by itself of your harvest, and you shall not gather the grapes of your undressed vine; it shall be a great Shabbat for the land. The Shabbat-year fruits of the land will be yours to eat, for you and your male and female servant and for your hired workers and the settlers who dwell with you. And for your animals and for the beasts in your land, all the produce will be food.
-Leviticus 25: 2-7
Technical civilization…begins when man, dissatisfied with what is available in nature, becomes engaged in a struggle with the forces of nature in order to enhance his safety and to increase his comfort….
[But] the Sabbath is a day of harmony and peace, peace between man and man, peace within man, and peace with all things. On the seventh day man has no right to tamper with God’s world, to change the state of physical things….The Sabbath, thus, is more than an armistice, more than an interlude; it is a profound conscious harmony of man and the world, a sympathy for all things…
Creation, we are taught, us not an act that happened once upon a time, once and for ever. The act of bringing the world into existence is a continuous process….Every instant is an act of creation.
-A. J. Heschel, The Sabbath
Laws of the Land: And when you come into the Land you shall plant every kind of fruit tree, and you shall consider its fruit orlah (uncircumcised) for three years; you shall not eat it. But in the fourth year all of its fruits shall be holy for a celebration to Adonai. And on the fifth year, eat its fruit to increase your harvest; I am Adonai your God.
-Leviticus 19: 23-25
You shall definitely tithe all the increase of your seeds which come forth from your fields, year by year. And you shall eat before Adonai your God in the place which He shall choose to rest His name the tithe of your grain and of your wine and of your oil and the firstborn of your herds and your flocks, in order that you may learn to revere Adonai your God all of your days.
-Deuteronomy 19:22-23
Bounty of the Land: The fruits of the Land of Israel are easier to eat than those of any other land.
-Sifrei, Ekev
In the future all the non-fruit-bearing trees in Eretz Yisrael will put forth fruits.
-Talmud, Ketubot 112b
Rav Chisda said: ‘And I have given you a precious land, an inheritance like a deer (eretz tzvi) [Jeremiah 3:19]’: Why is the Land of Israel compared to a deer? Just a deer’s skin can barely contain its flesh, likewise is Eretz Yisrael unable to contain all its fruit.
-Talmud, Ketubot 112b
In the creation of the world, the Holy One began with the act of planting, as it says: ‘And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden [Genesis 2:8].’ So too when you enter the Land of Israel, you should engage yourselves first in planting [Leviticus 19:23, above].
-Midrash Vayikra Rabba 25
Jonathan Wolf, a leading figure in the revival of the Tu B’Shvat Seder, has conducted Seders at homes, synagogues, and campuses across North America since 1975. Thousands of copies of the Seder text he developed, based on the Kabbalists’ original Pri Etz Hadar, are in circulation, and it has been widely borrowed from. He was chair and co-founder of L’OLAM, the NY-area Jewish environmental coalition of the 1980s and 1990s; directed and created the Community Action program at Lincoln Square Synagogue; was Social Policy Director of the Synagogue Council of America; and now directs the Institute for Jewish Activism. He can be contacted at jonthewolf@aol.com
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11. Sample Flyer for a Tu B’Shvat Seder
JOIN US AT OUR ANNUAL TU B’SHVAT SEDER!
FRIDAY January 29, 2010 8PM TEEN LOUNGE
JOIN US IN CONTINUING AND EXPANDING UPON THE RICH AND BEAUTIFUL TRADITIONS OF THE KABBALISTS OF SAFED
THERE WILL BE READINGS, SONGS, BRIEF TALKS AND EXPLANATIONS, EATING OF A WIDE VARIETY OF FRUITS, AND DRINKING OF FOUR CUPS OF GRAPE JUICE
TO HELP US REMEMBER AND CELEBRATE:
THE LAND AND ITS ABUNDANT PRODUCE;THE ENVIRONMENT WHICH SHELTERS AND SATISFIES US;
OUR CREATOR, THE SOURCE OF ALL OUR BLESSINGS
Learn the answers to the following four questions designed to help us understand the significance of this day, and much more.
Why is this day different from all other days?
1. Our other holidays honor events and people. Why does this holiday honor trees?
2. Ordinarily, we eat whatever fruit is in season. Why, today, do we specifically eat fruit that is grown in Israel?
3. We usually take the environment for granted. Why, today, do we focus on conservation?
4. It's winter. Why are we thinking about planting when spring is several months away?
There will also be a lot of nuts present, so it will be a fun time! So, come and enjoy!
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12. Sample Announcement for a Tu B’Shvat Seder
The annual Tu B’Shvat seder will be held on Friday evening, January 29, at 7:45 PM. Please come to celebrate the New Year for Trees with family and friends. Share a fun, meaningful event that relates to current environmental issues and connects an ancient tradition to our contemporary world, and eat lots of fruit and nuts. For further information, please contact . . .
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Since Tu B’Shvat occurs on Shabbat (January 29-30) this Jewish year, I would like to suggest that we promote “Turning Tu B’Shvat into an Environmental Shabbat.” I think this is especially important this year as the world increasingly approaches an unprecedented climate catastrophe, and, as one example, Israel is suffering from the worst drought in its history and projections are for Israel to experience severe heat waves and floods, continued lack of adequate rainfall and an inundating of the coastal plain where most Israelis live by a rising Mediterranean Sea.
I hope that the material below will be helpful. The resources (items 7 - 10) were compiled some time ago by Jonathan Wolf. Also, much of the material below was originally written for previous times that Tu B’Shvat fell on a Shabbat, but I have tried to bring some of it up to date. Sorry for any repetition since some of the articles cover overlapping topics.
Please use the material for your own articles, letters to editors and talking points. Suggestions very welcome.
The items below are:
1. JVNA Press Release on Turning Tu B’Shvat Into an “Environmental Shabbat”
2. Celebrating Tu B'Shvat This Year [5770/2010]: Trees, Shabbat, and Israel's Ecology, [originally written for 2003] by Jonathan Wolf
3. Turning Tu B'Shvat into an "Environmental Shabbat"
4. Tu B'Shvat and Vegetarianism, by Richard Schwartz
4a. Tu B’Shvat Message: Many Important Jewish Lessons Can Be Learned From Scriptural Verses About Trees
5. Preserving the Sacred Environment: A religious imperative, by Richard Schwartz
6. Sample Letter to the Jewish Media re Turning Tu B’Shvat into an Environmental Shabbat
7. Resources for Tu B’Shvat and Environmental Issues, Compiled by Jonathan Wolf
8. Groups Working to Improve Israel's Environment, Compiled by Jonathan Wolf
9. More Resources for Tu B’Shvat, Compiled by Jonathan Wolf
10. Some Texts about Tu B’Shvat, Shabbat, the Environment, and the Land of Israel, Compiled by Jonathan Wolf
11. Sample Flyer for a Tu B’Shvat Seder
12. Sample Announcement for a Tu B’Shvat Seder
Some material has been deferred to a later update/newsletter to keep this one from being even longer.
[Materials in brackets like this [ ] within an article or forwarded message are my editorial notes/comments.]
Opinions expressed do not necessarily represent the views of the JVNA, unless otherwise indicated, but may be presented to increase awareness and/or to encourage respectful dialogue. Also, material re conferences, retreats, forums, trips, and other events does not necessarily imply endorsement by JVNA or endorsement of the kashrut, Shabbat observances, or any other Jewish observances, but may be presented for informational purposes. Please use e-mail addresses, telephone numbers, and web sites to get further information about any event that you are interested in. Also, JVNA does not necessarily agree with all positions of groups whose views are included or whose events are announced in this newsletter.
Making Tu B’Shvat into an Environmental Shabbat provides a wonderful opportunity to help get environmental issues onto the Jewish (and perhaps other) agendas. Please use the material below and additional material in the resource section to help plan a local Shabbat/Tu B’Shvat event in your area.
Thanks,
Richard
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1. JVNA Press Release on Turning Tu B’Shvat Into an “Environmental Shabbat”
JEWISH GROUP URGES THAT TU B’SHVAT BE CONSIDERED AN “ENVIRONMENTAL SHABBAT”
For Immediate Release:
January 5, 2010
Contact:
Richard H. Schwartz, President of the Jewish Vegetarians of North America (JVNA)
President@JewishVeg.com Phone: (718) 761-5876
Jewish Vegetarians of North America (JVNA) issued the following statement today:
In view of the major threats to Israel and, indeed, the entire world from global warming and other environmental problems, it is essential that the Jewish community join with others in responding, and an excellent time to start is Tu B’Shvat, which starts this year at sundown on Friday evening, January 29. This increasingly popular “New Year for the trees” should be considered a “Jewish Earth Day.” Since it occurs on Shabbat this year, we are initiating a campaign to turn it into an “Environmental Shabbat.”
With Israel facing the worst drought in its history, and with the Israeli Union for Environmental Defense projecting that, if present trends continue, global warming will result in Israel soon facing major heat waves, a reduction of rainfall of up to 30 percent, severe storms causing major flooding, and a rising Mediterranean Sea which would inundate the coastal plain where most Israelis live, rabbis and other Jewish leaders should support and join major efforts to combat global warming.
“It is urgent that tikkun olam—the healing and repair of the world -- be a central issue in synagogues, Jewish schools and other Jewish institutions,” stated Richard Schwartz, president of JVNA. “Judaism has splendid teachings on environmental conservation and sustainability, and it is essential that they be applied to respond to the many current environmental threats, in order to move our imperiled planet to a sustainable path.”
Consistent with the fact that all the foods at the traditional Tu B’Shvat seder are from plants, JVNA also urges rabbis and other Jewish leaders to make Jews aware of how plant-based diets are most consistent with basic Jewish mandates to preserve human health, treat animals compassionately, protect the environment, conserve natural resources and help hungry people.
According to a UN Food and Agricultural Organization 2006 report, animal-based agriculture emits more greenhouse gases (in CO2 equivalents) than all the cars, planes, ships and other means of transportation worldwide combined. The report projects that the number of farmed animals worldwide, currently about 60 billion, will double by 2050. If that happens, the increased greenhouse gas emissions would negate the effects of many positive changes that environmentalists support. An article in the November/December, 2009 World Watch magazine by two environmentalists argued that the livestock sector is responsible for at least 51 percent of human-induced greenhouse gas emissions. Hence a major societal shift to vegetarianism is imperative.
Further information about these issues can be found at the JVNA web site JewishVeg.com. JVNA will provide complimentary copies of its new documentary A SACRED DUTY: APPLYING JEWISH VALUES TO HELP HEAL THE WORLD and related materials to rabbis and other Jewish leaders who will contact them (mail@jewishVeg.com).
JVNA plans to contact rabbis and other Jewish leaders to urge them to make Tu B’Shvat an “Environmental Shabbat,” with special sermons, talks, panel discussions, environmentally-orientated meals and kiddushes, nature walks and/or other events consistent with Shabbat and Tu B’Shvat.
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Supporting material includes the following:
The threats are really worldwide. There are daily reports of severe droughts, storms, flooding and wildfires and about meltings of polar icecap s and glaciers. All this due to an average temperature increase of about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit in the past 100 years, and global climate scientists are projecting an increase of from 2 to 11 degrees Farhrenheit in the next 100 years, which would result in an unprecedented catastrophe for humanity.
Some climate scientists are warning that global warming could reach a tipping point and spin out of control in a few years, with disastrous consequences, unless major changes soon occur Al Gore pointed out that the United States must free itself from fossil fuels and switch to renewable energy sources by 2018. He stressed the urgency of the change by stating: ‘the survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk,’ and that ‘The future of human civilization is at stake.’
When we read daily reports of the effects of global climate change, such as record heat waves, severe flooding, widespread droughts, unprecedented numbers of wild fires, and the melting of glaciers and polar icecaps; when some climate scientists are warning that global climate change may spin out of control with disastrous consequences unless major changes are soon made; when a recent report indicated that our oceans may be virtually free of fish by 2050; when species of plants and animals are disappearing at the fastest rate in history; when it is projected that half of the world’s people will live in areas chronically short of water by 2050; it is essential that the Jewish community fulfill our mandate to be a “light unto the nations” and lead efforts to address these critical issues.
Richard H. Schwartz, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus, College of Staten Island Author of "Judaism and Vegetarianism," "Judaism and Global Survival," and "Mathematics and Global Survival," and over 130 articles at www.JewishVeg.com/schwartz
President of Jewish Vegetarians of North America (JVNA) www.JewishVeg.com
and Society of Ethical and Religious Vegetarians (SERV) www.serv-online.org
Associate Producer of A SACRED DUTY ( asacredduty.com) Director of Veg Climate Alliance (www.vegclimatealliance.org) president@JewishVeg.com
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2. Celebrating Tu B'Shvat This Year [5770/2010]: Trees, Shabbat, and Israel's Ecology, [originally written for 2003] by Jonathan Wolf
[Jonathan is one of the most knowledge people on Tu B’Shvat and its many ramifications. For many years, he organized and ran very successful Tu B’Shvat seders in his former Manhattan apartment.]
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The holiday of Tu B’Shvat is a minor one on the Jewish calendar. It appears nowhere in the Bible, and when it first appears in Jewish literature, in the Mishna, its very date is the subject of dispute. Yet today it is an occasion rich with symbolism and significance, because of what it represents: nature and the environment, and the bounty of the Land of Israel.
Tu B’Shvat originated as one of the four New Years prescribed in Jewish law [Mishna Rosh Hashana 1:1]. It was established as the New Year of Trees, a kind of dividing line of the fiscal year for prescribing tithes, orlah (the first 3 years of a tree’s life), and according to some authorities the shmitta (sabbatical) year. Hillel and Shammai disagreed on the date; the school of Hillel (as almost always) was victorious in setting it on the fifteenth of the month of Shvat, when the earth in the Holy Land begins to warm up, the water starts to flow through the ground and the sap to course through the trees, and early-blossoming trees like the Almond (shaked) burst into bloom.
After the destruction of the Temple, the tithe offerings ended and the Jews were dispersed: thus the agricultural laws of the Land of Israel did not apply in most Jewish communities. Tu B’Shvat became a time of celebration and commemoration, recollecting the days when the Jewish people lived on its own land, working to bring forth the fruit of that earth. Numerous customs evolved (such as the colorful “Hamishusar” in some Sephardic communities) and Jews recited blessings and ate fruits, if possible those grown in Israel.
Development of the Seder for Tu B’Shvat: In the 1500’s in the Galilee city of Safed (also called S’fat or Tzfat), identified in the Talmud as one of the Holy Cities in the Land, the circle of Kabbalists who were followers of Rabbi Isaac Luria (the “Ari”) developed a special liturgy for Tu B’Shvat [as they were also inventing the kabbalat shabat service for Friday evenings and the all-night Tikun for Shavuot and Hoshana Rabba]: the Seder Leil Tu B’Shvat. The Kabbalists would stay up all night on Tu B’Shvat reciting their Seder, based loosely on the Passover Seder, focusing on fruits, trees, brachot, and kavvanot: invocations of attention and blessing on the fate of the trees and their fruit during the coming year, similar to the prayers for human life and welfare recited on Rosh Hashana.
The text of the Kabbalists’ Seder included four cups of wine -- evolving in color from entirely white to red-with-a-drop-of-white; the tasting of 21 different fruits, beginning with the Seven Species which according to Deuteronomy 8:8 epitomize the produce of Land of Israel (wheat, barley, olives, dates, grapes, figs, and pomegranates), followed by fruits mentioned in the Bible, particularly in the Song of Songs (etrog, apple, walnut, almond), and the carob (long associated with Tu B’Shvat), pear (discussed in the Mishna), and other fruits and nuts. The order of the Seder was first published in the 1700’s in the volume Pri Etz Hadar, attributed to Rabbi Haim Vital, which details the wines, the fruits, and the passages from Bible, Midrash, Mishna, Talmud, and especially Zohar -- since the Kabbalists found mystical meaning in each reading and tasting. Their Seder also provided for eating from three types of fruits corresponding to three of the four Lurianic “worlds”: wholly edible fruits such as figs for olam habriya (the world of creation), fruits edible on the outside but with pits, such as cherries, representing the world of yetzira (formation), and fruits with outside shells but edible insides such as pistachios, symbolizing the world of asiyah (action). [The fourth kabbalistic world, atzilut (emanation) is considered to be beyond physical representation].
In the last century the Jewish pioneers coming to Ottoman and Mandatory Palestine adopted Tu B’Shvat as an occasion for planting trees as part of the mass Jewish return to the Land and its rebuilding and renewal. The Tu B’Shvat Seder, a ritual which had been little remembered or practiced in most communities, has been revived and reinvented in recent decades. Today, Tu B’Shvat has become an occasion for directing our thoughts and energies to the natural world, to God’s Creation and our assignment to “labor over and preserve” it [l’ovdah ul’shomrah – Genesis 2:15], and to the Land of Israel and its particular sanctity, importance, and fragility.
When Tu B’Shvat concides with Shabbat: The holiday can fall on any day of the week (except Friday or Sunday), and only occurs on Shabbat, as it does this time, every several years.
Nothing specific changes in the observance of Tu B’Shvat when it takes place on Shabbat. But it provides an occasion for a longer, more intensive Seder during or after Shabbat dinner or as part of an Oneg Shabbat gathering, and for Torah study, discussions, sermons, singing, children’s celebrations, divrei torah, and other moments in the course of Shabbat to turn attention to the holiday, to fruit and trees, to natural and environmental concerns in Judaism, and to the qualities of the Land of Israel.
When Tu B’Shvat occurs on Shabbat, it is an especially appropriate day to commemorate the magnificence of God’s handiwork and our responsibilities to care for it. The Sabbath is central to virtually all of the Torah’s insights and instructions concerning the Earth and its protection. The prohibitions and obligations which are part of Shabbat observance, according to many rabbinic sources, aim to take us away from our weekday preoccupation with changing and leaving our mark on the world: to make us withdraw from acquiring and restructuring, in order that we may reflect on and recognize the beauty and integrity of Creation. Shabbat is a foretaste of the World to Come, a day on which we accept and respect the world as it is, rather than trying to build or destroy elements within it. The Ten Commandments instruct us that not only people but animals must share in this Sabbath rest. The shmitta, the seventh year on which Jews in the Land of Israel are directed not to plant or harvest but to allow the land to lie fallow to renew itself, and to allow the poor to partake freely of the crops, is called ‘shabbat ha’aretz’ [Leviticus 25:6] – the Land’s Sabbath.
These themes of the splendors of God’s world, the beauty of the Land of Israel, and the joy and quietude of Shabbat come together in the lyrical imagery of the Song of Songs. That Biblical book is a song-cycle of romantic verses which glory in fruits and nuts and wines and spices [for example, verses 2:11-13; 4:11; 4:13-14; 7:12-14], in the valleys and vineyards and orchards of Israel, and in the marvels of nature in Spring (of which Tu B’Shvat, at least in Israel if not in chillier climes, is the herald). (Quotations from the Song of Songs abound in the text of the Kabbalists’ Seder for Tu B’Shvat [including verses 2:3; 2:4; 4:3; 6:11; 7:8; 8:5]). Because the Song of Songs is also (according to Rabbi Akiba in the Talmud) an allegory of the loving relationship of God and the Jewish people, it is customary to recite it at the beginning of Shabbat, the time of greatest intimacy between Jews and the Divine.
Create an Eco-Shabbat! When Tu B’Shvat falls on Shabbat as it does this year, it becomes an opportunity to dedicate the day to enjoying and recognizing the natural world, Israel, and our task of stewardship. Meals, lectures, nature hikes, children’s activities, services, seudah shlishit (the late Saturday afternoon meal), study groups: many periods during Shabbat can address and direct our thinking to the Torah’s teachings about the meaning of true Sabbath rest, our obligations to preserve our world for future generations, the delights and varieties of healthful foods which spring from the earth, and our ties to the historic Jewish homeland in Israel and its rivers and hillsides.
Every synagogue, campus Hillel, havurah, JCC, religious school, senior center, community, and family can invent and adapt its own expression of an Environmental Shabbat on Tu B’Shvat—whether Seder, party, speaker, festive meal, text learning, games, songs, stories, or all-night gathering. This Shabbat is a propitious and auspicious time for focusing on the earth and its wonders and the ways it supports us and we protect it. When Tu B’Shvat falls on Shabbat, it is always Shabbat Shira, on which we read the Songs at the Sea of Moses and the children of Israel, and of Miriam and all the women [Exodus 15:1-21] and the haftara of the Song of Deborah [Judges 5:1-31]; it is a Shabbat which is ideal for singing -- whether around a circle, at meals, or performed by cantor, choir, or children’s chorale – including songs of Israel, of trees and fruits, from the Song of Songs, or of the melodies of Creation.
The state of Israel’s environment today: The Land of Israel, central to the genesis of Tu B’Shvat, is not just the place where Jews and Judaism originated, or our future Messianic home: it is also a real country of soil and winds and a remarkable variety of different eco-systems. And that terrain is in terrible trouble. Israel’s air, water, and land are contaminated by ever-increasing pollution. In most of its rivers, fish can only live for a few minutes. The air quality in Jerusalem is projected to become worse than that of Mexico City by 2010. The severe shortage of water supplies is rapidly worsening, as is the problem of garbage and solid waste. The number of automobiles increased one hundredfold in recent decades, while in a small country ideally suited to railways, the entire system of public transportation is inadequate and underfunded. Israel’s toxic waste dumps are overflowing and improperly contained.
As part of an Environmental Shabbat on Tu B’Shvat, materials, speakers, and discussions on the many imminent threats to Israel’s environment can be arranged and programmed into the day.
Tzedaka and the Tree of Life: Central to the purpose of celebrating Tu B’Shvat, and of conducting the Tu B’Shvat Seder, are the concepts of gratitude, b’rakhot, and tzedaka. We pray on the New Year of Trees that it should be a healthy, bountiful year for the trees which feed us (particularly those in the Land of Israel for whose produce the legal holiday was created), and the Kabbalists’ Seder multiplies the opportunities for reciting blessings recognizing and thanking our Creator for the cornucopia of flavors and aromas which we ‘taste and see’. Jewish tradition establishes as the most fitting response to our own good fortune and satisfactions the sharing of our joy with others who are in greater need. The Zohar calls the process of giving tzedaka ‘Ilana d’Hayyey’ -- Tree of Life – for we magnify and certify our happiness and thankfulness by providing for fellow human beings and for needful causes. Because this Tu B’Shvat falls on Shabbat, it may be inappropriate to bring and give cash or checks on the day itself, but our communal festivities can and should include provisions to inform everyone of places and ways to give or send donations which mark and spread our festivity.
Once every few years, Tu B’Shvat and Shabbat come together, providing Jewish groups and communities with a perfect time to talk, study, celebrate, sing and deliberate together about the blessings for which we are grateful, the world we need to rescue, the Holy Land and its riches and dangers, the harmony of nature, and Sabbath peace.
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3. Turning Tu B'Shvat into an "Environmental Shabbat"
Richard H. Schwartz
Many contemporary Jews are increasingly looking at Tu B'Shvat as a Jewish “Earth Day,” and using Tu B'Shvat seders as occasions to discuss how Jewish values can be applied to reduce many of today's environmental threats. This is more important than ever today in view of the many environmental problems currently facing Israel and our planet.
Since Tu B’Shvat falls on a Shabbat this Hebrew year (January 29-30, 2010), it would be wonderful if many congregations treated it as an “Environmental Shabbat,” with observances that would increase the environmental awareness and activism of its members. This could be a great opportunity for education about environmental crises locally, nationally, and internationally, with perhaps a special emphasis in some congregations on environmental problems in Israel. It also could help energize our congregations and bring many Jews back to Jewish involvement.
With Israel facing the worst drought in its history, and with the Israeli Union for Environmental Defense projecting that, if present trends continue, global warming will result in Israel soon facing major heat waves, a reduction of rainfall of up to 30 percent, severe storms causing major flooding, and a rising Mediterranean Sea which would inundate the coastal plain where most Israelis live, rabbis and other Jewish leaders should support and join major efforts to combat global warming.
The threats are really worldwide. There are daily reports of severe droughts, storms, flooding and wildfires and about meltings of polar icecap s and glaciers. All this due to an average temperature increase of about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit in the past 100 years, and global climate scientists are projecting an increase of from 2 to 11 degrees Farhrenheit in the next 100 years, which would result in an unprecedented catastrophe for humanity.
Some climate scientists are warning that global warming could reach a tipping point and spin out of control in a few years, with disastrous consequences, unless major changes soon occur Al Gore pointed out that the United States must free itself from fossil fuels and switch to renewable energy sources by 2018. He stressed the urgency of the change by stating: ‘the survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk,’ and that ‘The future of human civilization is at stake.’
When we read daily reports of the effects of global climate change, such as record heat waves, severe flooding, widespread droughts, unprecedented numbers of wild fires, and the melting of glaciers and polar icecaps; when some climate scientists are warning that global climate change may spin out of control with disastrous consequences unless major changes are soon made; when a recent report indicated that our oceans may be virtually free of fish by 2050; when species of plants and animals are disappearing at the fastest rate in history; when it is projected that half of the world’s people will live in areas chronically short of water by 2050; it is essential that the Jewish community fulfill our mandate to be a “light unto the nations” and lead efforts to address these critical issues.
These environmental problems are largely due to the fact that the ways of the world are completely contrary to Jewish values:
1. Judaism teaches that “The Earth is the Lord’s” (Psalms 24:1), and that we are to be partners with God in protecting the environment. But today's philosophy is that the earth is to be exploited for maximum profit, regardless of the long-range ecological consequences.
2. Judaism stresses bal tashchit, that we are not to waste or unnecessarily destroy anything of value. By contrast, wastefulness in the United States is so great that, with less than 5% of the world's people we use about a third of the world's resources, and this has a major impact on pollution and resource scarcities.
It is urgent that Torah values be applied toward the solution of current environmental problems. This means, for example: an energy policy based not on dangerous energy sources, but on CARE (conservation and renewable energy), consistent with Jewish teachings on preserving the environment, conserving resources, creating jobs, protecting human lives, and considering future generations.
Tu B'Shvat is the New Year for Trees, the date on which the fate of trees is decided for the coming year. Hence, it is an ideal time to consider the rapid destruction of tropical rain forests and other valuable habitats. It is interesting that the prohibition bal tashchit ("thou shalt not destroy") is based on concern for fruit-bearing trees, since the Torah indicates that even in war time fruit trees may not be destroyed in order to build battering rams to attack an enemy fortification (Deuteronomy 20:19.20). This teaching was extended by the Jewish sages to prohibit the destruction, complete or incomplete, direct or indirect, of all objects of potential benefit to people. Imagine the impact if this prohibition was put into practice by society today!
Some possibilities for an "Environmental Shabbat" include
1. A Tu B'Shvat seder on Friday night, with a discussion or guest speaker on an environmental topic;
2. A sermon on Jewish environmental teachings on Shabbat morning;
3. An environmentally-conscious kiddush and/or lunch, with a minimum of waste and an environmental d’var Torah;
4. A discussion or a guest speaker on an environmental topic after morning services (possibly as part of a kiddush) or between Mincha and Maariv.
There are many additional creative ideas consistent with Jewish tradition and Shabbat that can be considered.
It would be wonderful if Jews used Tu B’Shvat and activities related to this increasingly important holiday, as occasions to start to make tikkun olam, the repair and healing of the planet, a central focus in Jewish life today. This is essential to help move our precious, but imperiled, planet to a more sustainable path.
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There is much valuable background material on Jewish teachings on environmental issues and Tu B‘Shvat observances at the web sites of COEJL (Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life) (www.coejl.org) and Canfei Nesharim (www.CanfeiNesharim.org).
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4. Tu B'Shvat and Vegetarianism, by Richard Schwartz
Tu B'Shvat is arguably the most vegetarian of Jewish holidays, because of its many connections to vegetarian themes and concepts:
1. The Tu B'Shvat Seder in which fruits and nuts are eaten, along with the singing of songs and the recitation of Biblical verses related to trees and fruits, is the only sacred meal where only vegetarian, actually vegan, foods, are eaten as part of the ritual. This is consistent with the diet in the Garden of Eden, as indicated by God's first, completely vegetarian, dietary law:
And God said: "Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree that has seed-yielding fruit--to you it shall be for food." (Gen.1:29)
2. The Talmud refers to Tu B'Shvat as the New Year for Trees. It is considered to be the date on which the fate of trees is decided for the coming year. In recent years, one of the prime ways of celebrating Tu B'Shvat, especially in Israel, is through the planting of trees. Vegetarianism also reflects a concern for trees. One of the prime reasons for the destruction of tropical rain forests today is to create pasture land and areas to grow feed crops for cattle. To save an estimated 5 cents on each imported fast food hamburger, we are destroying forest areas in countries such as Brazil and Costa Rica, where at least half of the world's species of plants and animals live, and threatening the stability of the world's climate. It has been estimated that every vegetarian saves an acre of forest per year.
1. Both Tu B'Shvat and vegetarianism are connected to today's environmental concerns. Many contemporary Jews look on Tu B'Shvat as a Jewish earth day, and use Tu B'Shvat seders as occasions to discuss how Jewish values can be applied to reduce many of today's ecological threats.
When God created the world, he was able to say, "It is very good" (Genesis 1:31). Everything was in harmony as God had planned, the waters were clean, the air was pure. However, what must God think about the world today? What must God think when the rain he sends to nourish our crops is often acid rain due to the many chemicals poured into the air by our industries? when the abundance of species of plants and animals that He created are becoming extinct in tropical rain forests and other threatened habitats, before we are even been able to catalog them? when the fertile soil that He provided is rapidly being depleted and eroded? when the climatic conditions that He designed to meet our needs are threatened by global warming?
An ancient midrash has become all too relevant today:
In the hour when the Holy one, blessed be He, created the first person, He showed him the trees in the Garden of Eden, and said to him: "See My works, how fine they are; Now all that I have created, I created for your benefit. Think upon this and do not corrupt and destroy My world, For if you destroy it, there is no one to restore it after you." Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7:28
Today's environmental threats can be compared in many ways to the Biblical ten plagues, which are in the Torah portions in the weeks immediately preceding Tu B'Shvat: When we consider the threats to our land, water, and air, pesticides and other chemical pollutants, resource scarcities, threats to our climate, etc., we can easily enumerate ten modern "plagues". The Egyptians were subjected to one plague at a time, while the modern plagues are threatening us simultaneously. The Jews in Goshen were spared the Biblical plagues, while every person on earth is imperiled by the modern plagues. Instead of an ancient Pharoah's heart being hardened, our hearts today have been hardened by the greed, materialism, and waste that are at the root of current environmental threats. God provided the Biblical plagues to free the Israelites, while today we must apply God's teachings in order to save ourselves and our precious but endangered planet.
The Talmudic sages assert that people's role is to enhance the world as "co-partners of God in the work of creation" (Shabbat 10a). They indicated great concern about preserving the environment and preventing pollution. They state: "It is forbidden to live in a town which has no garden or greenery" (Kiddushin 4:12; 66d). Threshing floors had to be placed far enough from a town so that it would not be dirtied by chaff carried by winds (Baba Batra 2:8). Tanneries had to be kept at least 50 cubits from a town and could be placed only on the east side of a town, so that odors would not be carried by the prevailing winds from the west (Baba Batra 2:8,9). The rabbis express a sense of sanctity toward the environment: "the atmosphere (air) of the land of Israel makes one wise" (Baba Batra 158b). Again, vegetarianism is consistent with this important Jewish environmental concern, since modern intensive livestock agriculture contributes to many current environmental problems, including soil erosion and depletion, air and water pollution, the destruction of habitats, and global warming.
4. Both Tu B'Shvat and vegetarianism embody the important teaching that "The earth is the Lord's" (Psalm. 24:1) and that people are to be stewards of the earth, to see that its produce is available for all God's children. Property is a sacred trust given by God; it must be used to fulfill God's purposes. No person has absolute or exclusive control over his or her possessions. The concept that people have custodial care of the earth, as opposed to ownership, is illustrated by this ancient story:
Two men were fighting over a piece of land. Each claimed ownership and bolstered his claim with apparent proof. To resolve their differences, they agreed to put the case before the rabbi. The rabbi listened but could come to no decision because both seemed to be right. Finally he said, "Since I cannot decide to whom this land belongs, let us ask the land." He put his ear to the ground and, after a moment, straightened up. "Gentlemen, the land says it belongs to neither of you but that you belong to it."
With their concern about the preservation and expansion of forests and their focus on plant-based foods, both Tu B'Shvat and vegetarianism, reflect this important Jewish teaching.
5. Tu B'Shvat and vegetarianism both reflect the Torah mandate that we are not to waste or destroy unnecessarily anything of value. It is interesting that this prohibition, called bal tashchit ("thou shalt not destroy") is based on concern for fruit-bearing trees, as indicated in the following Torah statement: When thou shalt besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, thou shall not destroy (lo tashchit) the trees thereof by wielding an ax against them; for thou mayest eat of them but thou shalt not cut them down; for is the tree of the field man, that it should be besieged of thee? Only the trees of which thou knoweth that they are not trees for food, them thou mayest destroy and cut down, that thou mayest build bulwarks against the city that maketh war with thee, until it fall. (Deut. 20:19-20)
This prohibition against destroying fruit-bearing trees in time of warfare was extended by the Jewish sages. It it forbidden to cut down even a barren tree or to waste anything if no useful purpose is accomplished (Sefer Ha-Chinuch 530). The sages of the Talmud made a general prohibition against waste: "Whoever breaks vessels or tears garments, or destroys a building, or clogs up a fountain, or destroys food violates the prohibition of bal tashchit" (Kiddushin 32a). In summary, bal tashchit prohibits the destruction, complete or incomplete, direct or indirect, of all objects of potential benefit to people. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch states that bal tashchit is the first and most general call of God: We are to "regard things as God's property and use them with a sense of responsibility for wise human purposes. Destroy nothing! Waste nothing!" (Horeb; Chapter 56, #401) He indicates that destruction includes using more things (or things of greater value) than is necessary to obtain one's aim. (Horeb; Chapter 56, #399) The important Torah mandate of bal tashchit is consistent with vegetarianism, since, compared to plant-based diets, animal -centered diets require far more land, water, energy, and other agricultural resources.
6. Tu B'Shvat reflects a concern about future generations. In ancient times it was a custom to plant a cedar sapling on the birth of a boy and a cypress sapling on the birth of a girl. The cedar symbolized strength and stature of a man, while the cypress signified the fragrance and gentleness of a woman. When the children were old enough, it was their task to care for the trees that were planted in their honor. It was hoped that branches from both types of trees would form part of the chupah (bridal canopy) when the children married. Another example of the Jewish concern for the future that is expressed through the planting of trees is in the following story: Choni (the rainmaker) was walking along a road when he saw an old man planting a carob tree. Choni asked him: "How many years will it take for this tree to yield fruit?" The man answered that it would take seventy years. Choni then asked: "Are you so healthy a man that you expect to live that length of time and eat of its fruit?" The man answered: "I found a fruitful world because my ancestors planned for me. So I will do the same for my children." Vegetarianism also reflects concern about the future since this diet puts a minimum of strain on the earth and its ecosystems and requires far less water, land, energy, and other scarce agricultural resources than animal-centered diets.
7. It is customary to recite Psalm 104, as well as other psalms, on Tu B'Shvat. Psalm 104 indicates how God's concern and care extends to all creatures, and illustrates that God created the entire earth as a unity, in ecological balance:...Thou [God] art the One Who sends forth springs into brooks, that they may run between mountains,To give drink to every beast of the fields; the creatures of the forest quench their thirst.Beside them dwell the fowl of the heavens;...Thou art He Who waters the mountains from His upper chambers;...Thou art He Who causes the grass to spring up for the cattle and herb, for the service of man, to bring forth bread from the earth....How manifold art Thy works, O Lord! In wisdom hast Thou made them all; the earth is full of Thy property....
Vegetarianism also reflects concern for animals and all of God's creation, since for many people it is a refusal to take part in a system that involves the cruel treatment and slaughter of 10 billion farmed animals in the United States alone annually (60 billion worldwide), and, as indicated above, that puts so much stress on the earth and its resources.
8. Both Tu B'Shvat and vegetarianism are becoming increasingly popular today; Tu B'Shvat because of an increasing interest in and concern about nature and environmental issues, and vegetarianism because of increasing concern about health, the treatment of animals, and also the environment and the proper use of natural resources.
9. On Tu B'Shvat , the sap begins to fill the trees and their lives are renewed for another year of blossom and fruit. A shift toward vegetarianism means, in a sense, that there is an increased feeling of concern for the earth and all its inhabitants, and there is a renewal of the world's people's concerns about more life-sustaining approaches.
In 1993, over 1,670 scientists, including 104 Nobel laureates - a majority of the living recipients of the prize in the sciences - signed a "World Scientists' Warning To Humanity." Their introduction stated: "Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course. Human activities inflict harsh and often irreversible damage on the environment and on critical resources. If not checked, many of our current practices put at serious risk the future that we wish for human society and the plant and animal kingdoms, and may so alter the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we know. Fundamental changes are urgent if we are to avoid the collision our present course will bring about." The scientists' analysis discussed threats to the atmosphere, water resources, oceans, soil, living species, and forests. Their warning: "we the undersigned, senior members of the world's scientific community, hereby warn all humanity of what lies ahead. A great change in our stewardship of the earth and the life on it is required, if vast human misery is to be avoided.”
With the world's ecosystems threatened as never before, it is important that Jews increasingly discover the important ecological messages of Tu B'Shvat. Similarly, it is also urgent that Jews and others recognize that a shift toward vegetarianism, the diet most consistent with Tu B'Shvat, is not only an important individual choice today, but increasingly it is a Jewish imperative since the realities of modern intensive livestock agriculture and the consumption of animal products are inconsistent with many basic Jewish values, as well as a societal imperative, necessary for economic and ecological stability.
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4a. Tu B’Shvat Message: Many Important Jewish Lessons Can Be Learned From Scriptural Verses About Trees
Tu B’Shvat is considered the birthday for trees. Hence, it is a good time to consider scriptural verses about trees and the lessons they can teach us. Below are a few:
An important lesson involves what the mission of Jews should be.
In the early chapters of the Book of Exodus, we read about some very dramatic events: the birth of Moses; the examples of him opposing oppression, whether to Jews or non-Jews; Moshe’s encounter with God at the Burning Bush; the ten plagues that afflicted the Egyptians; the Exodus; the crossing of the Sea and the drowning of the Egyptians; and the songs of triumph and exaltation of Moses and then Miriam.
After these very dramatic events, there is a verse that seems almost anticlimactic: “And they came to Elim, where were 12 springs of water and 70 palm trees; and they encamped here by the waters.”
One might wonder why we need to know about the waters and the trees. But, Rabeynu Bachya, a Jewish philosopher in the Middle Ages, found a deep message. He stated that the 12 springs represented: the 12 tribes and the 70 palm trees represented the 70 nations in biblical times. He stated that just as the 12 springs nourished the 70 palm trees, Jews who are descended from these 12 tribes should nourish and inspire the nations of the world. So this should be our role today – to be a light unto the nations, a kingdom of priests, a holy people, God’s witnesses.
To carry out this mission, we have to know what issues to focus on, and an ancient midrash (rabbinic commentary) about trees provides some insight.
In the hour when the Holy one, blessed be He, created the first person, He showed him the trees in the Garden of Eden, and said to him: "See My works, how fine they are; Now all that I have created, I created for your benefit. Think upon this and do not corrupt and destroy My world, for if you destroy it, there is no one to restore it after you." [Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7:28]
This has become all too relevant today, as the world is threatened as perhaps never before by climate change and many environmental problems.
A Talmudic story about planting a tree teaches about the importance of considering future generations:
While the sage Choni was walking along a road, he saw a man planting a carob tree. Choni asked him: "How long will it take for this tree to bear fruit?" "Seventy years," replied the man. Choni then asked: "Are you so healthy a man that you expect to live that length of time and eat its fruit?" The man answered: "I found a fruitful world because my ancestors planted it for me. Likewise, I am planted for my children." (Ta’anis 23b)
A Torah verse about trees provides insight into the importance of conserving resources:
When you shall besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, you shall not destroy (lo tashchit) the trees thereof by wielding an ax against them; for you may eat of them. You shall not cut them down; for is the tree of the field man, that it should be besieged by you? Only the trees of which you know that they are not trees for food, them you may destroy and cut down, that you may build bulwarks against the city that makes war with you, until it fall. Deuteronomy 20:19,20
The Talmudic sages took this specific teaching and converted into a general prohibition (bal tashchit) against wasting or unnecessarily destroying anything of value.
Another Talmudic verse uses trees as a metaphor to discuss the relative importance of learning and deeds:
When a person’s wisdom exceeds his good deeds, to what may he be compared? To a tree with many branches but few roots. A wind blows, uproots it and topples it over . . . However, when a person’s good deeds exceed his wisdom, to what may he be compared? To a tree with few branches but with many roots. All the winds of the world may blow against it, yet they cannot move it from its place . . . (Ethics of the Fathers 3:22)
There are two puzzling statements related to trees that provide significant lessons:
Rabbi Yohasan Ben Zakkai said: If you are in the midst of planting a tree and word reaches you that the Messiah has arrived, do not interrupt your work; first finish your planting and only then go out to welcome the Messiah. (Avot de-Rabbi Nathan)
Perhaps a lesson here is that there have been many false Messiahs in Jewish history and it might be good to be somewhat skeptical, but carrying on with the everyday work of the world is always important.
Rabbi Ya'akov says: One, who while walking along the way, reviewing his studies, breaks off from his study and says, "How beautiful is that tree! How beautiful is that plowed field!" Scripture regards him as if he has forfeited his soul (Ethics of the Fathers, 3:7).
Perhaps the lesson in this apparently harsh teaching is that there should be no separation between Torah learning and appreciation of nature and one who considers them as two separate categories will be punished.
A Torah verse about trees in the Garden of Eden provides insights into God’s preferred diet for humans.
And God said: "Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree that has seed-yielding fruit -- to you it shall be for food." (Genesis 1:29)
Based on the prophecy of Isaiah that in the Messianic period, “The wolf will dwell with the lamb, . . . the lion will eat straw like the ox, . . . and no one shall hurt nor destroy on all of God’s holy mountain,” Rabbi Abraham Isaac Hakohen Kook, first Chief Rabbi of pre-state Israel thought that this other ideal time would be vegetarian when
Everyone will sit under their vine and fig tree and none shall make them afraid; for the Lord of Hosts has spoken. (Micah 4:4)
Finally, a talmudic story about blessing a tree provides a model for blessing people:
A man was traveling through the desert, hungry, thirsty, and tired, when he came upon a tree bearing luscious fruit and affording plenty of shade, underneath which ran a spring of water. He ate of the fruit, drank of the water, and rested beneath the shade.
When he was about to leave he turned to the tree and said: 'Tree, oh, tree, with what should I bless you? "Should I bless you that your fruit be sweet? Your fruit is already sweet. "Should I bless you that your shade be plentiful? Your shade is plentiful. That a spring of water should run beneath you? A spring of water runs beneath you."
"There is one thing with which I can bless you: May it be God's will that all the trees planted from your seed should be like you . . . (Ta’anit 5b)
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5. Preserving the Sacred Environment: A religious imperative, by Richard Schwartz
Tu B'Shvat is connected to today's environmental concerns. Many contemporary Jews look upon the day as a Jewish earth day, a day on which to discuss and focus on ecological threats — destruction of tropical rain forests; global climate change; acid rain poured into the air by our industries; a rapidly depleted ozone layer; plants and animals quickly becoming extinct; depleted soil. [1]
An ancient midrash has become all too relevant: "In the hour when the Holy one, blessed be He, created the first person, He showed him the trees in the Garden of Eden, and said to him: "See My works, how fine they are; Now all that I have created, I created for your benefit. Think upon this and do not corrupt and destroy My world, For if you destroy it, there is no one to restore it after you." [2]
Today's environmental threats can be compared in many ways to the Biblical ten plagues, which appear in the Torah portions read on the Shabbatot immediately preceding Tu B'Shvat. When we consider the threats to our land, water, and air, pesticides and other chemical pollutants, resource scarcities, threats to our climate, etc., we can easily enumerate ten modern "plagues." Like the ancient Pharaoh, our hearts have been hardened by the greed, materialism, and waste that are at the root of current environmental threats.
The sacred environment
The Talmudic sages express a sense of sanctity toward the environment: "The atmosphere (air) of the land of Israel makes one wise." [3] So, too, do they assert that people's role is to enhance the world as "co-partners of God in the work of creation." [4] The rabbis indicate great concern for preserving the environment and preventing pollution:
"It is forbidden to live in a town which has no garden or greenery." [5]
Threshing floors are to be placed far enough from a town so that the town is not dirtied by chaff carried by winds. [6]
Tanneries are to be kept at least 50 cubits from a town and to be placed only on its eastern side, so that odors are not carried by the prevailing winds from the west. [7]
"The earth is the Lord's" [8]
We are the stewards of God's earth, responsible to see that its produce is available for all God's children. Property is a sacred trust given by God; it must be used to fulfill God's purposes. The story is told of two men who were fighting over a piece of land. Each claimed ownership and bolstered his claim with apparent proof. To resolve their differences, they agreed to put the case before the rabbi. The rabbi listened but could come to no decision because both seemed to be right. Finally he said, "Since I cannot decide to whom this land belongs, let us ask the land." He put his ear to the ground and, after a moment, straightened up. "Gentlemen, the land says it belongs to neither of you but that you belong to it." [9]
"Thou shall not destroy"
The prohibition not to waste or destroy unnecessarily anything of value (bal tashhit - "thou shalt not destroy") is based on concern for fruit-bearing trees, as indicated in the following Torah statement: "When in your war against a city you have to besiege it a long time in order to capture it, you must not destroy its trees, wielding the ax against them. You may eat of them, but you must not cut them down. Are trees of the field human to withdraw before you under siege? Only trees that you know to not yield food may be destroyed; you may cut them down for constructing siege works against the city that is waging war on you, until it has been destroyed." [10]
This prohibition against destroying fruit-bearing trees in time of warfare was extended by the Jewish sages. It it forbidden to cut down even a barren tree or to waste anything if no useful purpose is accomplished. [11] The sages of the Talmud made a general prohibition against waste: "Whoever breaks vessels or tears garments, or destroys a building, or clogs up a fountain, or destroys food violates the prohibition of bal tashchit" [12]
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, 19th century philosopher and author, states that bal tashhit is the first and most general call of God: We are to "regard things as God's property and use them with a sense of responsibility for wise human purposes. Destroy nothing! Waste nothing!" He indicates further that destruction includes using more things (or things of greater value) than are necessary to obtain one's aim. [13]
Ecological balance
It has become customary to recite Psalms on Tu B’Shvat, among them Psalm 104. This Psalm speaks of God's concern and care extended to all creatures, and illustrates that God created the entire earth as a unity, in ecological balance: "You make springs gush forth in torrents;; they make their way between the hills, giving drink to all the wild beasts; the wild asses slake their thirst. The birds of the sky dwell beside them and sing among the foliage. You water the mountains from Your lofts; the earth is sated from the fruit of Your work. You make the grass grow for the cattle, and herbage for man's labor, that he may get food out of the earth, wine that cheers the hearts of men, oil that makes the face shine, and bread that sustains man's life." [14]
Tu B'Shvat is indeed an appropriate time to apply Judaism's powerful environmental teachings to help move our precious, but imperiled, planet to a more sustainable path.
[1] See articles in the ecology section at JewishVeg.com/schwartz
[2] Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7:28
[3] Baba Batra 158b
[4] Shabbat 10a
[5] Kiddushin 4:12; 66d
[6] Baba Batra 2:8
[7] Baba Batra 2:8,9
[8] Psalms 24:1
[9] Story told by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin in "Biblical Ecology, a Jewish View," a television documentary directed by Mitchell Chalak and Jonathan Rosen
[10] Deut. 20:19-20; JPS translation
[11] Sefer Ha-Chinuch 530
[12] Kiddushin 32a
[13] Horeb; Chapter 56
[14] Psalm 104: 10-15 See: Arthur Waskow, Seasons of Our Joy: A Creative Guide to the Jewish Holidays (Boston: Beacon Press, 1982)
Richard H. Schwartz, PhD, Professor Emeritus, College of Staten Island, is author of Judaism and Vegetarianism, Judaism and Global Survival, and Mathematics and Global Survival. He has over 140 articles and 25 podcasts of his talks and interviews on his Jewish Vegetarianism website (JewishVeg.com/schwartz).
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6. Sample Letter to the Jewish Media re Turning Tu B’Shvat into an Environmental Shabbat
Dear editor,
Many contemporary Jews look on Tu B'Shvat (January 29-30 this year) as a Jewish ‘Earth Day,’ and use Tu B'Shvat seders as occasions to discuss how Jewish values can be applied to reduce many of today's ecological threats. This is more important than ever in view of the many environmental threats currently facing our planet.
While Judaism teaches that “The Earth is the Lord’s” (Psalms 24:1), and that we are to be partners with God in preserving the environment, there are daily news reports about water shortages, air and water pollution, the depletion of the ozone layer, and soil erosion and depletion. Tu B'Shvat is the New Year for Trees, the date on which the fate of trees is decided for the coming year. Hence, it is an ideal time to consider the rapid destruction of tropical rain forests and other valuable habitats. While Israel has made remarkable progress in many areas, it faces chronic droughts, very badly polluted rivers, severe air pollution in its major cities and industrial areas, rapidly declining open space, congested roads, and an inadequate mass transit system.
In view of the above and much more, I urge Jews to use Tu B’Shvat and activities related to this increasingly important holiday, as occasions to start to make tikkun olam, the repair and healing of the planet, a central focus in Jewish life today.
Since Tu B’Shvat falls on a Shabbat this Hebrew year, it would be wonderful if many congregations treated it as an “Environmental Shabbat” with observances that would increase the environmental awareness and activism of its members. This could be a great opportunity for education about environmental crises locally, nationally, and internationally, with perhaps a special emphasis in some congregations on environmental problems in Israel. It also could help energize our congregations and bring many Jews back to Jewish involvement.
Very truly yours,
Richard H. Schwartz, Ph.D.
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7. Resources for Tu B’Shvat and Environmental Issues, Compiled by Jonathan Wolf
(may need some updating):
A. WEBSITES
Adam Teva V'Din: The Israel Union for Environmental Defense
http://www.iued.org/il/eng/
Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL)
http://www.coejl.org/
Ministry of Environment (Israel) http://www.environment.gov.il
http://www.israel-mfa.gov.il/gov/environ.html
Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel
http://www.spni.org/
Richard Schwartz articles http://jewishveg.com/schwartz
Shalom Center
Sierra Club
Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) http://www.ucsusa.org/
U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) http://www.epa.gov
Many Links to Tu B’Shvat http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=Tu+B%27Shvat&btnG=Google+Search
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B. BOOKS
Buxbaum, Yitzhak. A Person Is Like a Tree: A Sourcebook for Tu B’Shvat. Northvale, NJ; Jerusalem: Jason Aronson, 2000.
Schwartz, Richard H. Judaism and Global Survival. New York: Lantern Books, 2002. (A free copy of this book will be sent to very rabbi who contacts the author at rschw12345@aol.com and indicates that it will be used as background for a Tu B’Shvat environmental program.)
Waskow, Arthur, editor. Torah of the Earth: Exploring 4,000 Years of Ecology in Jewish Thought. Volumes 1 and 2. Woodstock, Vermont: Jewish Lights Publishing, 2000.
Waskow, Arthur, et al. Trees, Earth, and Torah: A Tu B’Shvat Anthology. Philadelphia: Jewish Publishing Society, 1999.
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8. Groups Working to Improve Israel's Environment, Compiled by Jonathan Wolf
(may need some updating):
Israel’s environmental movement includes a number of organizations which are fighting to save the ecology of Israel. They can inform you about current crises and activities, and will provide books, pamphlets, reports, and contacts. You may also choose, in connection with Tu B’Shvat programs, to raise or donate contributions to support their vital projects.
Neot Kedumim: The Biblical Nature Reserve: On any visit to Israel, a trip to Neot Kedumim is delightful: the site (not far from Ben Gurion airport) features the trees and plants of the Bible and Talmud, including special areas for the Seven Species, the flora of the Song of Songs, and the landscape of our slavery in Egypt. Neot Kedumim is also a center for research and publication on environmental issues and natural history in Jewish sources, including extensive materials about Tu B’Shvat. You can order such superb works as the books Nature In Our Biblical Heritage and Tree and Shrub in Our Biblical Heritage and the booklet Ecology in the Bible from American Friends of Neot Kedumim in Halcott Center, NY. Phone (845) 254-5031 or fax (845) 254-9836. Investigate the Nature Reserve or plan trips there at their website:
www.neot-kedumim.org.il
The Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (Hevra L’haganat HaTeva): reaches more Israelis than any other Non-Governmental Organization (and, proportionately, more citizens than any NGO in the world) through its programs in schools, hikes and trips, field study centers, and grass-roots group, the Eco-Activists (Shomrei HaSviva). Severe cutbacks in government spending because of the economic and security crises are threatening SPNI’s important programs. To join, learn about eco-tourism in Israel, or become active in their efforts, visit their English-language website: www.teva.org.il/e
The Israel Union for Environmental Defense [IUED] (Adam Teva v’Din): is Israel’s leading environmental advocacy group which fights pollution, unregulated industry, and unplanned development through litigation, legislation, and citizen organizing. To find out about ongoing endeavors on clean air, recycling, coastlines, toxic wastes, the absurd but actual artificial-islands plans, and many other areas, and to sign up for their monthly E-news updates, contact www.iued.org.il
Heschel Center for Environmental Learning and Leadership: Last year, we celebrated the thirtieth yahrzeit of Abraham Joshua Heschel, after whom the Center was named. In the spirit of Rabbi Heschel’s notion that the magnificence of Creation should imbue us with a “sense of wonder” and awe at God’s grace and wisdom, the Heschel Center’s website features numerous on-line articles and pamphlets on Judaism and environmental education, as well as studies conducted in cooperation with the Worldwatch Institute on the state of Israel’s environment -- including the recent report on “Air Pollution and Public Health in Israel”. www.heschelcenter.org
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9. More Resources for Tu B’Shvat, Compiled by Jonathan Wolf
A Person Is Like a Tree: A Sourcebook for Tu Beshvat by Yitzhak Buxbaum (New York: Jason Aronson, 2000 ) is the best book available about the origins of the holiday and the Seder, including extensive discussion of the kabbalistic intentions and orientation of the Seder’s S’fat-based creators. It can be ordered through the website of its publisher: www.aronson.com or by contacting the author at yitzhak@att.net.
Trees, Earth, and Torah: A Tu B’Shvat Anthology, Edited by Ari Elon, Naomi Mara Hyman, and Arthur Waskow (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1999) includes articles on ecology in Biblical and Talmudic Judaism, modern ‘Eco-Judaism”, and understanding and celebrating Tu B’Shvat.
Tu Bi-shvat and Purim Melodies An excellent book of the music and words to songs of the holiday, along with an accompanying cassette of the songs. Available at a terrific discount from the website of its publisher, Tara Publications: www.Jewishmusic.com
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10. Some Texts about Tu B’Shvat, Shabbat, the Environment, and the Land of Israel, Compiled by Jonathan Wolf
Tu B’Shvat: The first day of the month of Nissan is Rosh Hashana (the beginning of the year) concerning [counting the length of the reign of] kings and [the order of the] Festivals [since Passover, in Nissan, is counted as the first].
The first day of Elul is Rosh Hashana for the tithing of animals.
The first of Tishrei is Rosh Hashana for [marking the beginning of] years, for shmitta (sabbatical) and yovel (jubilee) years, and for plants and vegetables.
The first of Shvat is Rosh Hashana for trees. So says the house of Shammai; the house of Hillel says, the fifteenth of that month.
-Mishna Rosh Hashana 1:1
Any tree which puts forth its fruit before Tu B’shvat has its fruit counted in the past year; if afterward, then in the coming year
-Tosefta Shvi’it 4:20
Environmentalism in Torah: When you besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to conquer it, you shall not destroy [lo tash’hit] the trees thereof by wielding an ax against them. You may eat of them but you shall not cut them down; for is the tree of the field a person, that it should be besieged by you? [Alternative translations: For a person is like a tree of the field, to come before you in the siege. Or: For a person (stays alive by) the tree of the field…]. Only the trees which you know that they are not trees for food, those you may destroy and cut down, in order to build bulwarks against the city that makes war with you, until it fall.
-Deuteronomy 20:19-20
The purpose of the mitzva [above, of bal tash’hit] is to teach us to love that which is good and worthwhile and to cling to it, so that good becomes a part of us and we avoid all that is evil and destructive. This is the way of the righteous and those who improve society, who love peace and rejoice in the good in people and bring them closer to Torah: that nothing, not even a grain of mustard, should be lost to the world, that they should regret any loss or destruction that they see, and if possible to prevent any destruction that they can. Not so are the wicked, who are like demons, who rejoice in the destruction of the world, and they thus destroy themselves.
-Sefer HaHinukh, mitzva #529
Shabbat: Remember the day of Shabbat to sanctify it. Seven days you should work and do all your labor, but the seventh day is for your God: you shall not do any labor, you and your son and your daughter and your male and female servant and your animals and your foreigner in your gates. For in seven days Adonai made the heaven and earth and the sea and everything in them, but He rested on the seventh day. Therefore Adonai blessed the Shabbat day and sanctified it.
-Exodus 20:8-11
When you come to the Land which I am giving to you, the land shall observe a Shabbat to Adonai. Six years you will plant your fields and six years you will prune your vineyards, and you will gather its produce. But on the seventh year is a great Shabbat for the land, a Shabbat to Adonai; you shall not plant your field not prune your vineyard. You shall not reap what grows by itself of your harvest, and you shall not gather the grapes of your undressed vine; it shall be a great Shabbat for the land. The Shabbat-year fruits of the land will be yours to eat, for you and your male and female servant and for your hired workers and the settlers who dwell with you. And for your animals and for the beasts in your land, all the produce will be food.
-Leviticus 25: 2-7
Technical civilization…begins when man, dissatisfied with what is available in nature, becomes engaged in a struggle with the forces of nature in order to enhance his safety and to increase his comfort….
[But] the Sabbath is a day of harmony and peace, peace between man and man, peace within man, and peace with all things. On the seventh day man has no right to tamper with God’s world, to change the state of physical things….The Sabbath, thus, is more than an armistice, more than an interlude; it is a profound conscious harmony of man and the world, a sympathy for all things…
Creation, we are taught, us not an act that happened once upon a time, once and for ever. The act of bringing the world into existence is a continuous process….Every instant is an act of creation.
-A. J. Heschel, The Sabbath
Laws of the Land: And when you come into the Land you shall plant every kind of fruit tree, and you shall consider its fruit orlah (uncircumcised) for three years; you shall not eat it. But in the fourth year all of its fruits shall be holy for a celebration to Adonai. And on the fifth year, eat its fruit to increase your harvest; I am Adonai your God.
-Leviticus 19: 23-25
You shall definitely tithe all the increase of your seeds which come forth from your fields, year by year. And you shall eat before Adonai your God in the place which He shall choose to rest His name the tithe of your grain and of your wine and of your oil and the firstborn of your herds and your flocks, in order that you may learn to revere Adonai your God all of your days.
-Deuteronomy 19:22-23
Bounty of the Land: The fruits of the Land of Israel are easier to eat than those of any other land.
-Sifrei, Ekev
In the future all the non-fruit-bearing trees in Eretz Yisrael will put forth fruits.
-Talmud, Ketubot 112b
Rav Chisda said: ‘And I have given you a precious land, an inheritance like a deer (eretz tzvi) [Jeremiah 3:19]’: Why is the Land of Israel compared to a deer? Just a deer’s skin can barely contain its flesh, likewise is Eretz Yisrael unable to contain all its fruit.
-Talmud, Ketubot 112b
In the creation of the world, the Holy One began with the act of planting, as it says: ‘And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden [Genesis 2:8].’ So too when you enter the Land of Israel, you should engage yourselves first in planting [Leviticus 19:23, above].
-Midrash Vayikra Rabba 25
Jonathan Wolf, a leading figure in the revival of the Tu B’Shvat Seder, has conducted Seders at homes, synagogues, and campuses across North America since 1975. Thousands of copies of the Seder text he developed, based on the Kabbalists’ original Pri Etz Hadar, are in circulation, and it has been widely borrowed from. He was chair and co-founder of L’OLAM, the NY-area Jewish environmental coalition of the 1980s and 1990s; directed and created the Community Action program at Lincoln Square Synagogue; was Social Policy Director of the Synagogue Council of America; and now directs the Institute for Jewish Activism. He can be contacted at jonthewolf@aol.com
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11. Sample Flyer for a Tu B’Shvat Seder
JOIN US AT OUR ANNUAL TU B’SHVAT SEDER!
FRIDAY January 29, 2010 8PM TEEN LOUNGE
JOIN US IN CONTINUING AND EXPANDING UPON THE RICH AND BEAUTIFUL TRADITIONS OF THE KABBALISTS OF SAFED
THERE WILL BE READINGS, SONGS, BRIEF TALKS AND EXPLANATIONS, EATING OF A WIDE VARIETY OF FRUITS, AND DRINKING OF FOUR CUPS OF GRAPE JUICE
TO HELP US REMEMBER AND CELEBRATE:
THE LAND AND ITS ABUNDANT PRODUCE;THE ENVIRONMENT WHICH SHELTERS AND SATISFIES US;
OUR CREATOR, THE SOURCE OF ALL OUR BLESSINGS
Learn the answers to the following four questions designed to help us understand the significance of this day, and much more.
Why is this day different from all other days?
1. Our other holidays honor events and people. Why does this holiday honor trees?
2. Ordinarily, we eat whatever fruit is in season. Why, today, do we specifically eat fruit that is grown in Israel?
3. We usually take the environment for granted. Why, today, do we focus on conservation?
4. It's winter. Why are we thinking about planting when spring is several months away?
There will also be a lot of nuts present, so it will be a fun time! So, come and enjoy!
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12. Sample Announcement for a Tu B’Shvat Seder
The annual Tu B’Shvat seder will be held on Friday evening, January 29, at 7:45 PM. Please come to celebrate the New Year for Trees with family and friends. Share a fun, meaningful event that relates to current environmental issues and connects an ancient tradition to our contemporary world, and eat lots of fruit and nuts. For further information, please contact . . .
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