Earth

Many of Rabbi Arthur Waskow's books deal with the teachings of Judaism about healing and celebrating the earth.

All are available from The Shalom Center:

Down-to-Earth Judaism: Food, Money, Sex, and the Rest of Life. How Judaism has dealt with these everyday issues and their relationship to the earth through all the changing eras of Jewish history. $11.00

Seasons of Our Joy. The festivals seen as a spiritual journey through the year, drawing on the dance of sun, moon, and earth that is encoded in them. $18.00

Trees, Earth, & Torah: A Tu B'Shvat Anthology. Anthology of what Judaism has said about trees and the celebration of their rebirth, from the Garden of Eden through rabbinic teachings through the Kabbalah through Zionism through modern eco-Jewish teachings. $22.00

When Abraham Sees God in Oak Trees

Dear Friends,

The Torah portion Vayeira (Gen. 18:1 through 22: 24) itakes its name" from its first word. This word is usually translated "appeared," but it comes from the root for "see," and the same root appears in a different form right afterwards.

The second word is "YHWH." That is usually translated "the Lord," but since this sacred unpronounceable Name with no vowels can only be "pronounced" by breathing --- "Yyyyhhhhwwwwhhhh" - I translate it as "the Breath of Life" or "the Wind/ Breath/ Spirit of the world."

The first sentence says "YHWH brought-about-being-SEEN to [Abraham] in [b'] the oaks of Mamre."

A sermon for Kol Nidre 5768
By Rabbi Burt Jacobson

My fiancé Diane and I set aside the last Sunday in July as a day to spend together. Our plan was to drive to Marin County, and to hike on Mt. Tamalpais. It was a lovely sun-drenched morning. After I woke up, meditated and prayed, and had eaten my breakfast, I turned my cell phone on. There was a message from my brother Stuart who, with his wife Jean, were vacationing in Colorado, staying in a cabin in the mountains.

"Hi! Just calling to say I love you. This morning I was sitting on the porch looking out over the valley a few hundred feet below, and a butterfly came up and landed on my hand. I watched as the butterfly scoped out my hand with his tongue -- for about two to three minutes. Then, it flew away. Within seconds a bee flew up to me, about two feet away and, hanging in the air, wings flapping in a blur, directly facing me, looked at me for a minute or longer, turned maybe 150 degrees and looked into the window of our cabin for another minute or so, turned back to me for another minute or two and then flew off. Well, I love you. Take care . . ."

Philadelphia Jewish EXPONENT
September 13, 2007

- Bryan Schwartzman, Staff Writer

Pushing for reductions in fossil-fuel emissions and trying to reverse the global-warming trend nationally and throughout the world may make perfect sense, but what on earth do energy-policy goals have to do with Judaism?

That question was posed to Rabbi Arthur Waskow -- who's written several books that examine how Judaism and the environment intersect -- after he'd delivered a recent talk on the subject at Congregation Kol Ami in Elkins Park.

His answer? Everything!

The founder of the Philadelphia-based Shalom Center replied that, first of all, a concern for stewardship over the earth is rooted in Judaism's biblical tradition, and is, in fact, a central component of it.

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow, from his book DOWN-TO-EARTH JUDAISM: FOOD, MONEY, SEX, & THE REST OF LIFE (Morrow).

By looking at Jewish approaches to food from the Biblical era to the modern age, we have brought ourselves to the edges of the present. If now we want to get a glimpse of possible futures for Jewish attitudes toward food, let us begin with four unconventional questions:
1. Are tomatoes grown by drenching the earth in pesticides "kosher" to eat, at home or at the synagogue's next wedding reception?
2. Is newsprint made by chopping down an ancient and irreplaceable forest "kosher" to use for a Jewish newspaper?

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow *

The adventure of the Jewish people with the sacredness of food began when the People of Israel -- as an indigenous community in its own land -- defined the most important way of connecting with God as the offering to God of the foods of that land in sacred shrines.

The Hebrew usually translated as "sacrifice" or "offering" is korban, which literally means "what is brought near." A word from the same root means "innards," and the korban was what brought God near to the most inward part of the human body.

The foods that thus brought God as near as physically/ spiritually possible included not only beef and mutton but also barley, wheat, leavened and unleavened bread, pancakes, olive oil, various fruits, wine, and water.

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow

[This essay is Chapter XVII of the book GODWRESTLING -- ROUND 2 (Jewish Lights). For copies of the whole book at a discounted price, write Office@shalomctr.org ]

‘ What is the relationship between the Jewish family and the two broader families within which it is nestled: the human race and our web of living earth? How should the Jewish people address questions that do not uniquely affect Jews, but arise within the broader planetary life?

One such issue arose late in the 1970s. It was, you might say, the most universal question imaginable: the possible death of the entire human race. Yet for many Jews it seemed to echo their own most terrible, unique experience.