Thanks to All the ContributorsBy Rabbi Shawn Zevit and Roni Handler To all those who graciously contributed to JRF's Omer Study Initiative:Rabbi Brant Rosen Kol HaKavod for all the great work you have been doing in your communities. And thank you for sharing your inspiring stories and insights with the entire JRF community and beyond. Thank you also to the many of you who posted over the previous weeks. Topics covered in this year's Omer Study Project will continue to be available at this web site. If you have any additional/related information and/or pictures that you would like us to upload onto our website to accompany your teachings please send them to Rabbi Shai Gluskin at sgluskin@jrf.org. Our hope is that the work that you have been doing in your communities will inspire others and help them think about how to take on similar projects in their home communities. Check out Tikkun Olam resources. Thank you again for sharing your torah. L'Shalom, Rabbi Shawn Zevit With Compassion Comes ResponsibilityBy Rabbi Brant Rosen
As the 2006 Hurricane Season commences, many of us still recall the indelible images from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina last fall. But in addition to the tragic ruin of Katrina, it is impossible to ignore the remarkable mobilization of American citizens that ensued. In the wake of this terrible disaster, so many of us created a real and palpable communal bond with people who lived far away from our own neighborhoods—in most cases with people whom most of us did not know personally. It was truly a time in which we saw first-hand how citizens and communities can work together in the spirit of compassion and caring. However, nearly one year later, we would do well to ask, do we still care? Indeed, as inspiring as these mobilizations were, they beg deeper and more troubling questions. Why do we invariably seem mobilize our compassion in response to the “crisis de jour,” if you will? Why does our compassion so often seem to be after the fact: reactive rather than proactive? And why does our compassion invariably seem to have such a short shelf life? It is true that we are often simply overwhelmed by the sheer depth of the human suffering that the 24-hour news media brings to our door. As a result, when it comes to our compassionate impulses, we often don’t know where to start. So just as we tend to compartmentalize everything in our immediate world—our family lives, our careers, and our social lives, our religious lives—we also compartmentalize our reactions to the larger world outside our door. Compartmentalized compassion. Statistically speaking, it should be pointed out that Americans are a compassionate and generous people. In fact, American philanthropic giving is relatively high compared to other countries. But it is also well known that private giving is on the decline. Many experts point out that with increased mobility and the breakdown of community, our culture is becoming increasingly privatized and individualistic. In a society that has always defined itself as volunteeristic, apparently more and more people are volunteering not to give away what they feel “belongs to them.” As a result, in contemporary America, collective compassion too often feels like a precious—and even sometimes arbitrary—commodity. Here’s one little cultural reference point that might serve as an example: the ubiquitous bumper sticker that advises, “Practice Random Acts of Kindness and Senseless Acts of Beauty.” In its way, this slogan reflects something very profound about contemporary American culture. As a society that values individual initiative, it is natural that we will view compassion as a random, voluntary enterprise. We act compassionately whenever we feel compassionate. And yes, we might well feel a great deal of compassion: for our loved ones, we may even feel compassion for people we don’t actually know. But the problem with this approach, of course, is that feelings cannot be guaranteed. They come and go. Feelings are, by definition, elusive and transient. Jewish tradition provides us with a different model. Compassion is not random—it is an imperative. Even love itself is commanded: Love your neighbor as yourself. You shall love Adonai your God. You shall love the stranger, for you were once strangers in the land of Egypt. In other words, feelings are wonderful, but feelings are not enough. Compassion should not be reduced to a random feeling—it is should be a mindful, ongoing conscious practice. We must learn how to be compassionate even if we are not feeling particularly compassionate—even if we are too overwhelmed to feel compassionate. Compassion is, for lack of a better word, a discipline. Jewish commentators have pointed out that one well-known Hebrew word for compassion, chesed, might be more accurately rendered as “covenantal loyalty.” To demonstrate this point we can look at the specific contexts in which the word chesed is used in the Bible. God shows chesed for Israel—and Israel for God—when they remain loyal to the mutual relationship they established at Sinai. In another example, Ruth is praised in the Bible for the chesed she demonstrates to her mother-in-law Naomi when she remains loyal to her promise to stand by her side. The Rabbis took this abstract notion of chesed and applied it to the everyday life of the Jewish community. Chesed societies, for instance, were the proto-typical Jewish communal welfare institutions that were the cornerstone of Jewish communities for centuries. They too were guided by the central ethic of covenantal loyalty—of “commanded compassion.” At its core, chesed is intrinsically connected to the concept of covenant and mutual obligation. It is the kind of love and compassion that comes from a deeper sense of communal accountability. Though the Torah presents this covenantal model in a Jewish context, we Americans have a great deal to learn from it. Too often, it seems, our American culture venerates individual freedoms to such an extent that we often view the suggestion of communal obligation as a personal violation. In a covenantal context, however, our individual freedom is necessarily refracted through the experience of our mutual responsibility to one another. As long as we view our mutual responsibility to one another as random or voluntary, will continue to access our collective compassion in a reactive manner—arbitrarily—in response to whatever new crisis the media decides to present to us at any random point in time. But if we affirm that our compassion is not dependant on how we feel—if we understand that compassion is neither random nor voluntary but rather is guided by a sense of obligation and responsibility to the fellow members of our community—then we may find that our compassion is not as limited a commodity as we might previously have thought. The concept of chesed has implications for our actions as private citizens, but it clearly has implications for public policy and advocacy as well. Indeed, with the 9th Ward of the City of New Orleans still as devastated as the day Katrina’s waters receded, we would do well look seriously and unflinchingly into nation’s responsibility to the ongoing challenges that face the Gulf Coast region, and to the untold numbers of American citizens displaced by the hurricane. And we must face honestly our communal responsibility toward addressing policies that leave too many American citizens vulnerable: the poor, the elderly and the infirm, vulnerable—the very people who bore the tragic brunt of this terrible disaster. Many have pointed out that one of the greatest, most empowering spiritual gifts that the Jewish people has bequeathed to the world is our unique conception of covenant. Whatever we believe about what actually occurred at Sinai, there can be no doubt that it was a radically counter-cultural statement for its time. To claim that human beings did not have to live at the whim of the powerful, that we could live with a sense of covenantal loyalty to one another and to a Power much greater than us—this was truly a spiritually revolutionary concept for the cultures of the Ancient Near East. This notion is just as counter-cultural in today’s world as well. In a nation increasingly gripped by a culture of self-focused individualism, where compassion is defined largely as a matter of personal choice, standing up and promoting chesed—mandatory covenantal compassion—is truly the ultimate act of chutzpah. On the other hand, perhaps it is a spiritual model whose time has come. As a follow-up to Shavuot—the time in which we stand once more at Sinai to reaffirm our covenant with the Source of Chesed, may we all find a measure of compassion: for ourselves, for those we love, and for our world at large. And then, if and when we succeed, may we all come to understand – truly understand – that with compassion comes responsibility. Questions for Thought/Discussion:
Rabbi Brant Rosen is the spiritual leader of the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation in Evanston, IL. He is also the President of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association. Justice and Sustainability – Protecting Creation by Feeding People, and Vice VersaBy Rabbi Fred Dobb
There will always be hungry people in our midst (per Deut. 15) – unless and until, anyway, we tackle its root causes, and prevent the feedback mechanisms which exacerbate the problem. So far our Omer study has addressed many of these reasons why so many still go hungry, and these explorations are valuable, but incomplete. We still need to more thoroughly investigate the linkage between environmental destruction and human hunger, poverty, and suffering. That linkage goes way back. The first sixth of the Talmud is Seder Z’ra’im, the Order of Seeds, pointing toward sustainable agriculture and tzedakah alike. Sustainable agriculture, where the land is respected enough to keep feeding people generation after generation, resonates from Leviticus to Tractate Peah to Israeli innovation in drip irrigation. That environment-hunger linkage is also important to consider precisely so we can learn how to feed people and spare ecosystems. The connection between human hunger and environmental devastation is a fact of history, a challenge for today, and a key to our survival tomorrow. In the Past: Societies that don’t plan for the long-term, and don’t fastidiously protect their environment, collapse, with often disastrous results. Easter Island cut down forests to build up cities and monuments, and once treeless and soil-less, imploded. Ancient Mesopotamia supported a huge population through irrigation, but the growing salinity of the soil led millions to starve. Rome’s downfall may well have involved heavy metal contamination in the populace. How different are we?! In the Present: Poor and hungry people, understandably, denude their local environment. What good is a wildlife preserve next door when your own family is malnourished? When residents need subsistence firewood to stay warm and heat food, what chance do the last nearby trees have? No environmental solution can work without also meeting the basic needs of the human population -- true in the savannah or in Savannah, in Tell Afar or Tel Aviv, locally and globally. And the reverse is true too: stripping vegetation creates new drier microclimates, leading to lower crop yields. Deforestation leads to soil erosion and loss of farmland. Toxins spewed into the air bioaccumulate in the plants and animals we eat. Polluted water sources compromise agriculture across the board. The environment must be protected in order to feed people; people must be fed in order to protect the environment. In the Future: The impact of environmental destruction is always felt heaviest those already poorest and hungriest. “Environmental justice” advocates, including religious environmentalists, have long noted the undue environmental burden of the poor (the field began in a sense with a United Church of Christ study in 1985; the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life, has in recent years been a key player in this movement). The worst however is yet to come: the rising sea levels and adverse weather changes that global warming are bringing will first and most seriously affect poor hungry people in developing nations, clustered along coastlines, already experiencing horrific food insecurity. Indigenous knowledge of agriculture and nature will be lost as the same crops no longer grow where they have for millennia. To keep people fed, global climate change and other environmental catastrophes must be mitigated. What can we do for environmental justice? Three examples from Adat Shalom in Bethesda, MD. We designed our own synagogue building to be as energy efficient and as possible, using alternative materials (like cork instead of vinyl flooring) to be conscious of human health impacts. We sponsored a drive to replace potentially toxic mercury thermometers with digital ones, safely disposing of the hazardous older models. And we partnered with our local “Interfaith Power and Light” group (http://www.theregenerationproject.org) to buy a good percentage of the energy our synagogue uses from wind and other renewable sources, to do something to lessen the global warming now upon us. In each of our communities there are so many things we can do. One of the texts above, from Rabbi Howard Cohen in Vermont, lists a host of possible actions. A number of our JRF affiliates are now designing synagogue buildings and expansions with environmental concerns in mind, led by JRC in Evanston Illinois which is breaking new ground by striving for high LEED certification (see www.usgbc.org for more on LEED green building). And as individuals, acting on our most deeply held Jewish values, there is no limit to what we can accomplish. But first we must realize that we cannot choose either to feed the hungry or to protect Creation. As Jews and as people, we simply must do both. Questions for Thought and Discussion:
Rabbi Fred Dobb is the spiritual leader of Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation and serves on the Board of Directors of COEJL, Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life. |
