At Hazon and Pearlstone, we believe in the centrality of adam and adamah, people and planet. Our mission is to cultivate vibrant Jewish life in deep connection with the earth, catalyzing culture change and systemic change through immersive retreats, Jewish environmental education and climate action.

Young Jews tend to care more about climate and sustainability than older generations, and they are also less likely than older generations to affiliate with Jewish institutions. Climate grief and anxiety are now diagnosable mental health crises that impact young people across the Jewish world. For many, what keeps them up at night is not Jewish survival, but human survival. Additionally, the issues of declining Jewish affiliation and the global climate crisis are not unrelated. 

Almost 10 years ago, the term JOFEE (Jewish Outdoor, Food, Farming, and Environmental Education) was coined by a group of funders. Collectively, the Jim Joseph Foundation, Leichtag Foundation, The Morningstar Foundation, Rose Community Foundation, Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies and UJA-Federation of New York invested in the Seeds of Opportunity JOFEE report. They discovered — through robust third-party research — a movement that was making a significant impact across the Jewish world. Since then, the Jim Joseph Foundation’s investments focused on supporting the four largest JOFEE organizations — Hazon, Pearlstone Center, Urban Adamah and Wilderness Torah — and launching the JOFEE Fellowship, to both professionalize and expand career opportunities across the field.

Over four years, the JOFEE Fellowship trained more than 60 young adults as educators, placing them at JCCs, federations, summer camps and other Jewish organizations. For fellows, the chance to create change by bridging their environmental concerns with their Jewish identities was a key motivation for joining the program.

“I was sick of being Jewish for the sake of being Jewish,” one wrote. “I’m here because I think being Jewish really matters in the world.”

In 2019, the Jim Joseph Foundation invested in these organizations for an additional three years, over the course of which we learned lessons and gathered insights as our field grew and evolved.

1. The growth and diversification of the community of people engaging in JOFEE

As the pandemic unfolded, Jewish outdoor education quickly became a go-to for communities. Programs have grown both in the number and type of participants they’re engaging — including wider age ranges, geographies and affiliation levels. Both the accelerated adoption of virtual programming, and the desire of people to re-engage in in-person programming as the world reopens, means that we have, so far, maintained new program growth, and expect to continue to do so into the future.  

Reflecting this growth, Wilderness Torah and Camp Newman will create the Center for Earth-Based Judaism, a learning center for all segments of the community to focus on earth care and climate resiliency. As Wilderness Torah builds regionally, it also is scaling nationally, with programs such as Neshama (Soul) Quest and Jewish backpacking trips. And while its festivals are transformational, the organization has also identified a need for smaller programs across urban areas to increase participation: after going to two to three small programs, people begin to attend larger events. 

In 2023, Hazon and Pearlstone are merging into the largest Jewish environmental non-profit outside of Israel. Our two retreat centers (Isabella Freedman in Falls Village, Conn., and Pearlstone Center outside of Baltimore) were hit hard by the pandemic, but we also saw tremendous growth in our programmatic impact. In the words of one parent whose child was in a weekly program: “While the children are busy feeling free and happy and honing their favorite skills, our parental spirits are soaring because we know [they’re being guided] toward full aliveness, sensitivity and responsibility to the world around them.”

2. Nature is a profound driver of reconnection to Jewish life

In this age of digital overload and hesitancy surrounding indoor gatherings, a nature-connected, outdoor Judaism speaks directly to what we need in mind and body, heart and soul. Despite myriad online opportunities, people continue to seek the authentic sense of purpose and connection that can be found through engaging with the more-than-human world.

“I experienced a profound healing in the part of my soul that has been searching for a tribe and embodied Jewish community,” one Wilderness Torah participant said. “My Jewish heart and connection to my ancestors has opened. I have found my home as a Jew.” JOFEE connects youth to wider Jewish communal life and keeps them engaged by providing meaningful experiences. We need to ask ourselves how to authentically connect with who we are at our rooted core, to the obligations and responsibilities of what it means to be a human on planet earth.

3.  Jewish youth and young adults are seeking environmental leadership opportunities inside and outside the Jewish community 

Perhaps one of the biggest lessons learned over the past years is the growing demand from, and for, Jewish youth to be empowered as their own leaders and educators in environmental work and action. Launched in 2020, Hazon’s Jewish Youth Climate Movement (JYCM) has blossomed into more than 44

kvutzot (chapters) nationwide, each with 10-30 members. Efforts run by the teens themselves reach about 10,000 more people each year. These chapters are not just powerful Jewish engagement opportunities; they are also a safe space for young people who may not feel accepted with their full Jewish identities amid some elements of anti-Zionism and antisemitism in the secular climate justice movement.

“Previous to my engagement in JYCM, I was in a youth-led movement that…taught me a lot about the climate crisis and how to organize,” one teen said. “However, at times it felt as if I had to choose between my Jewish identity and organizing, as the movement had been involved in some anti-Semitic activity and my specific chapter was unwilling to publicly condemn it.”

College campuses are an area of critical future growth, with Hillels among the most active participants in Hazon’s climate action and sustainability programs to date. As young adults seek ways to get involved, many look for hands-on experiences. For example, Urban Adamah runs an alternative spring break experience combining sustainable agriculture and Jewish community building.

A theme among these programs is participants’ desire to make a difference in the world overall, not just within the Jewish world. As such, JOFEE programs are increasingly welcoming young adults’ non-Jewish friends and family members, helping to foster participation and widening the tents of involvement and belonging.

4.  Growing Jewish communal interest and action on Sustainability resents new opportunities for wider Jewish collaboration

For many of the JOFEE field’s participants, the climate crisis is an overarching emotional and spiritual theme, present in their daily lives. And Jewish tradition has a direct, powerful, and unique response to these concerns.  For over 20 years, we have unpacked Jewish ecological wisdom to connect people with their own inspiration, and an empowered community of peers to build with. Moving forward, we aim to interweave Hazon and Pearlstone’s programs in order to facilitate greater networking, collaboration, and leadership among participants.

Hazon’s growing national portfolio of virtual and in-person programs provide options for pop-up collaborations. At the same time, Jewish youth are increasingly seeking leadership opportunities within JOFEE — a useful avenue for them to create meaningful experiences while also building a network of peers. We approach the end of 2022 with a new and diverse set of programs and participants, including a network of hundreds of Jewish teen activists across the country via JYCM; a newly launched Jewish Climate Leadership Coalition with over 120 Jewish organizations, three major national community hubs engaging tens of thousands of people a year in Baltimore, New York/Connecticut and Detroit; and a programmatic framework that enables seamless online and in-person fusions. With Wilderness Torah and Urban Adamah also scaling programs nationally increasing their regional impact, it is increasingly possible for young Jewish individuals to find their place in a Jewish community that also shares their environmental values.

By expanding our ability to engage youth and young adults on the issues that matter most to them, we also renew Jewish communal life, empowering them to build their own communities of meaning, purpose and connection.

The post Shmita-scale learning: A seven-year reflection from Jewish environmental leaders appeared first on Adamah.

“Joining together with our People, and remembering a place and time before we had our own land, we are being called to maintain the sanctity of humanity and creation.”

The final parsha in the Torah, V’Zot Habracha, is unique in that it is not read on a regular Shabbat. Rather, this third-shortest parsha, containing only 41 verses, is read on Simchat Torah as part of our celebrations concluding – and immediately restarting – the annual Torah reading cycle. It recounts blessings by Moses to the various tribes of Israel, his death overlooking the Land of Israel (which he was destined not to enter), and the Children of Israel’s mourning for our greatest leader. 

(This Shabbat’s reading instead focuses on portions related to the Festival of Sukkot).

It is actually right now and specifically this year that we are commanded to fulfill a unique and particularly beautiful mitzvah: Hakhel. Parshat Vayelech, which we read two weeks ago, instructs us to gather in Jerusalem during Sukkot following the conclusion of Shmita (Deut. 31:12):

Gather the nation: men, women and children and the stranger in your midst, so that they shall hear and so that they shall learn; and be in awe of God and keep all of the words and actions of this Torah.

In other words, once every seven years, the entire nation is to gather together as one at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to hear the words of the Torah. Many have pointed out how the commandment of Hakhel (“to gather”) is a re-enactment of the revelation at Mt. Sinai. Just as all Jews were present for the giving of the Torah at Sinai, all Jews are commanded to join together to hear highlights of the Torah in Jerusalem. This is a beautiful way to remind everyone in the entire nation of its shared history, and of a shared obligation to remain loyal to the Torah and to one another.

While the formal Mitzvah of Hakhel is not practiced today, various groups have attempted to re-enact it with modern flair, even including Israel’s President and official Chief Rabbis. 

Perhaps there is added significance in the fact that Hakhel takes place at the end of the shmita year. We have spent the past year focusing on our responsibility to those whom we may forget during our everyday lives. It is too easy to ignore the plight of those who are less fortunate than ourselves, and it is too convenient to try and look past the negative impact our everyday behaviors can have on the environment. Yet by joining together with every member of our People, and by remembering a place and time before we had our own land, we are being called to maintain a sense of consciousness for the sanctity of humanity and creation. We are also given the opportunity to better preserve and protect God’s creations and God’s world.

The post V’Zot Habracha & Hakhel: How The Torah Ends The Shmita Year by Rabbi Yonah Berman appeared first on Adamah.

“We are growing closer to our last chance to turn our attention back to the earth and its needs, for our beliefs to become re-rooted in reality.”

What is sacred to a climate denier? What do they worship? They privilege pseudo-science over science, fantasy over reality, all in the name of preventing  significant change in the world. Non-change, non-progress, unending perpetuation of the status quo. That is the religion of the climate denier. The climate pessimist says something similar. They acknowledge the climate crisis but they refuse to believe in a solution.

This phenomenon has echoes in Parashat Ha’azinu. After describing the extraordinary ingratitude of the Jews in turning to idolatry, the Torah says, “They sacrificed to demons, no-gods,”(Deut. 32:17) and the Midrash says, “If they had worshiped the sun, or the moon, or stars, etc., things that are necessary to the world, and the world benefits from them, God’s angry jealousy would have been less. But they worshiped things that do no good for them but rather do them harm!”(Sifrei Devarim 318:17). The idolatry described here is not misplaced faith that something beneficial has powers of its own. It is doubling down on the belief that something that in reality has no benefit, and indeed is harmful, is actually beneficial and wholesome.

The consequence of this stubbornness of belief is a punishment that is totally mysterious to its objects. The Torah says, “They incensed Me with no-gods, vexed Me with their futilities; I’ll incense them with a no-nation…” Because the idolatrous Jews chose to embrace negativity and futility, God’s punishment comes in the form of something that fits none of their categories, a “no-nation,” something that their belief system doesn’t prepare them to understand.

This shmita year, as we read Parashat Ha’azinu, we are growing closer to our last chance to turn our attention back to the earth and its needs, for our beliefs to become re-rooted in reality. May our mistakes be in over-optimism about one solution or another to the crises we face. May we avoid the traps of negativity and futility represented by denial of the problem, or denial of the solution.

The post Ha’azinu: The Idolatry Of The Denier, by Rabbi Haggai Resnikoff appeared first on Adamah.

“What is being born when something is ending and what is ending when something is being born?”

This week is the last week of the 7 year sabbatical cycle called Shmita. The portion of Torah read this week, as the year takes its leave, is called by the name “Vayelech,” which translates as “and he went.” Who is he? Moses. Where did he go? He went to tell the tale of his passing (in an epic overshare) saying “I am one hundred and twenty years old, I can no longer go forth and come in.” He is to leave this world on the day he came into it 120 years ago. It is on this day, the 7th day of the Hebrew month of Adar, that Moses writes the Torah scroll and instructs that it should be read at the end of every shmita year. It is this merging of coming and going which is at the core of the deeper Torah of shmita. As the Sefer Yetzirah, the Book of Creation, states about the mysteries of creation that “their end is in their beginning and their beginning is in their end.” 

A closer look at the text will reveal its depth. Moses instructs that the reading of the Torah should be “… at the end of seven years, at the time of the shmita (sabbatical) year, during the festival of Sukkot ….” What?!? The festival of Sukkot is in the beginning of 8th year (year one of a new cycle) so why is it being called the sabbatical year of shmita? The boundaries between one year and the next; between beginning and end; between holy and mundane; between rest and work are slipping away! This is precisely the point. According to Ibn Ezra the word “miketz” found in our opening verse “… at the end of the seven years” in this case is actually “in the beginning of the seven years.” For “miketz” means both “in the end” or “in the beginning” depending on the context. Therefore the reading of the Torah, known as Hak’hel, would inaugurate the sabbatical year of Torah rather than concluding it. The deeper Torah sustains both these possibilities at once. 

The sabbatical year of Shmita asks us; what is being born when something is ending and what is ending when something is being born? Who is being deprived when one gains and who is gaining when one is deprived; what is becoming mundane when something becomes sacred and what is becoming sacred when something is becoming mundane? And in the end (or beginning) are these actually even questions? And is this even the end of Shmita?

The post Vayelech: Is This The End Of Shmita? by Rabbi Petakya Lichtenstein appeared first on Adamah.

“The shmita year is nearly ended, but not quite. There is still time. Time to pause. Time to pray.” 

“And in the night
My father came to me
And held me to his chest
He said there’s not much more that you can do
Go on and get some rest.” – “Think Too Much (b)”, Paul Simon

Moses is soon to die. He gathers his tribe to him and says: All that I’ve taught you, it’s not too hard, it’s not beyond your reach. (Deut. 30:11) But, of course, we know that’s not true. The Torah is too hard for us. It has always been too hard for us. We never get it right, this life. The very existence of the High Holy Days, of an entire season devoted to repentance, testifies to our forever missing the mark.

It must be that Moses means something else. That, or he’s playing the part of the underdog coach, offering a pep talk to his hapless team. But that doesn’t seem right; Moses is a tough love prophet. Moses does not do so much “pep.”

Then what does he mean: All that I’ve taught you, it’s not too hard, it’s not beyond your reach?

Ibn Ezra, the Spanish commentator and sage, reminds us that the word nifleit in Hebrew – too hard – comes from the Hebrew root fele – wonder. Wonder, Ibn Ezra adds, in the sense of something esoteric, out there, complicated, beyond understanding. Moses, then, could be saying: All that I’ve taught you, don’t complicate it, don’t overthink it – keep it real, within your reach.

Of course, we can only know we’ve been overthinking things, overcomplicating our lives, when we have simplicity with which to compare. Shmita is that simplicity – that pause – that provides us a kind of baseline of sanity. The quiet of the shmita year, the stillness and peace of a year without planting, harvesting, striving, seeking, returns us to the real, to what has always been – without our overthinking things – within reach.

The shmita year is nearly ended, but not quite. There is still time. Time to pause. Time to pray. Time to sit quietly someplace wonderful and enjoy some simple peace. But, in truth, there is time, plenty of time, beyond this shmita year. Every seven years has its shmita, every week has its Shabbat, and every day has, at the very least, a moment or two – time enough each day, in peace, to reach the real.

The post Nitzavim: Keep It Real – Don’t Overthink It! by Rabbi Benjamin Shalva appeared first on Adamah.

“You can only give what is yours.”

Parshat Ki Tavo opens with the commandment of bikkurim. It continues with related agricultural commandments and a commandment to inscribe the Torah on large stones. The sages add that this was made in 70 different languages, to be accessible to all nations. The parsha concludes with a long speech detailing the blessings the nation will receive if it follows the Torah, and the calamities which will befall it if it does not.

Bikkurim means bringing the first fruits to the Temple and reciting a special prayer. It is valid only under certain circumstances: (1) physical presence in the Land of Israel; (2) well-established political status in the land; and (3) building the Temple. There is an additional precondition, which is complete human ownership of the fruits a person brings, according to the verse: “the first fruits of your land.” Even one who has planted a tree in their own land but has layered it into another person’s land cannot bring the firstfruits (layering is taking a branch and bending it to the point of planting it in the ground while still attached to the original tree so it grows new roots). Nevertheless, the essence of the firstfruits commandment is letting go of the fruits in a solemn and joyful process, and not as an experience of loss.

This complex dynamic, between ownership and letting go, is also one of the foundations of shmita.

Along with the establishment and preservation of the mechanisms that enable private property and personal freedom, and thus the prosperity of society and the individual, shmita seeks to instill in us the awareness that together our lives are interdependent, yet, individually, a mere shadow passing over the earth. Although our natural inclination is to be preoccupied with our property (which may outlast us, especially our non-recyclable waste), property does not define who we are.

I once learned from Rabbi Menachem Fruman, of blessed memory, that this forceps movement – of ownership and letting go, of toil and rest, of framework and freedom – is the most liberating thing. It was when I worked with him on an essay for a book on Jewish economic thought when we started talking about Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Adams explains that to learn to fly, all you must do is throw yourself at the ground and miss it. Rabbi Fruman paralleled this to the tension between aspiring for transcendental holiness and promoting actual justice within this world.

Thus, shmita and bikkurim invite us to throw ourselves straight into the core of private ownership in the most meticulous sense, and yet miss it and learn to fly. In this sense, shmita enables us to grasp eternity, while living within the constraints of space and time.

The post Ki Tavo: Property, Shmita And Learning To Fly, by Aharon Ariel Lavi appeared first on Adamah.

“Shmita too can loosen the sway of addictive patterns of consumption.”

Parshat Ki Tetze begins with two mitzvot that the rabbis characterize as countering addiction. The first, of these, the laws of the female captive, challenges and attempts to moderate the abuse and dehumanization of women that is endemic to war. The second, the law of the “stubborn and rebellious son” deals with a child who is set on a bad course in life. The talmud (Sanhedrin, 69-71) defines the conditions to qualify as a stubborn and rebellious son. He must habitually steal a certain quantity of red meat and good wine from his parents (or steal the money to purchase these ) and then consume them outside his parent’s home. The penalty – death –  is extreme, and the majority of rabbis say that in fact there never was a stubborn and rebellious son who was put to death. Why then is it in the Torah? So that we might “study it and receive reward.” So let’s study it!  

The talmudic discussion drills down into the kind of meat (red meat, but not dried out, and not chicken) and wine (old wine that has matured, not the stuff that has just come out of the vat,) that the kid has to consume to be liable. It also explores the social situation in which the offense happens, and the kind of relationship he has with his parents. The issue behind these details is whether this pattern of stealing to feed consumption is so addictive that “the son will end up using up all his parents’ money and to feed his habit he will go out to the crossroads and violently rob people” (Sanhedrin 72a).

The Torah recognizes the overwhelming power of addiction to destructive habits. Shmita is one of its ways for breaking addiction. It requires that, one year in seven, we take a break from agricultural work, refrain from treating food as a commodity, and challenges social isolation by restoring frayed bonds of community. In these ways shmita can loosen the sway of addictive patterns of consumption.

Teshuva is another of the Torah’s ways to help us break the hold of destructive habits. Teshuva celebrates our ability to change course. Midway through the month of Ellul, and with Rosh Hashanah in view, may God help us to free future behavior from slavery to bad patterns from the past, and choose life for ourselves and our world.         

The post Ki Tetze: Mitzvot To Combat Bad Habits And Destructive Behaviors, by Rabbi Yedidya Sinclair appeared first on Adamah.

We find ourselves in the month of Elul, a time for introspection and checking in with ourselves, a time to confront all the ways in which we missed the mark this past year, and a time to reflect upon who we want to be in the year ahead. We prepare with anticipation of the holy days coming soon, and we begin the work of teshuvah, tfilah, and tzedakah–repentance, prayer, and justice–so that we may transform ourselves and our world.

But this is not just any Elul. This is the end of the Shmita year, and as Rav Kook teaches us, “What the Sabbath does for the individual, Shmita does for the nation.” So now is the time to ask ourselves both individually and collectively, communally, and globally: What does repentance, prayer, and justice mean for all our people, and for all our planet?

Hazon-Pearlstone’s mission is to lead a transformative movement deeply weaving sustainability into the fabric of Jewish life, catalyzing culture change and systemic change through Immersive Retreats, Jewish Environmental Education, and Climate Action.

Through education, we seek to create the culture change that Shmita beckons of us, changing lives and building a new kind of Jewish culture for the 21st century. In June, we shared an introduction to one pillar of our work, Jewish Retreating; today we want to share with you an introduction to another pillar of our work: Jewish Environmental Education.

We are blessed by amazing leadership in this realm, with Yoni Stadlin stepping into the role of Chief Program Officer leading an awesome group of educators who collectively provide hundreds of programs inspiring tens of thousands of participants across North America and around the world. I cannot imagine a better leader for this transformative work than Yoni. Thank you, my friend!

Thank you, Jakir!

Over the past twelve years I served as Founding Director of Eden Village Camp, and was continually inspired by the children, teens and people of all ages who brought our farm-to-table community to life. I’m excited to continue the momentum of nature connection, movement-building, and positive culture change as I step into this powerful work with all of you. Together, anything is possible. Let’s gooo! I am amazed at the individual and collective impact of our educational programs:

• The Adamah Fellowship, a 3-month program for adults in their 20s & 30s that integrates organic agriculture, farm-to-table living, Jewish learning, community building, social justice and spiritual practice.
• Teva, connecting Jewish youth to G!d’s Creation through multi-day immersive Jewish outdoor educational experiences that foster a deep connection to nature and Jewish tradition.
• The Jewish Youth Climate Movement, a Gen Z-led movement dedicated to combating climate change and environmental injustice from a Jewish lens and empowering the next generation of Jewish youth to be leaders in our fight to build a sustainable and equitable world for all.
• Hazon Detroit, inspiring local Michigan congregations, organizations, and community members through education, earth-based ritual, and sustainability projects exploring health, environmental awareness, nature, the outdoors, and food in all its delicious interconnectedness.
• Pearlstone Programming, integrating Jewish Wisdom, Nature Connection, and Edge Experiences into programming for Youth, Families, Young Adults, and Leaders across the Baltimore Jewish community and beyond.
• Leading the JOFEE movement, collaborating with leaders and educators across the country in order to strengthen and support one another in our shared work in Jewish Outdoor Food Farming & Environmental Education.
• Torah of the Earth, inviting Jewish learners and teachers of all backgrounds into dialogue with Jewish tradition’s deep wellspring of wisdom regarding the natural world and our role as Shomrei Adamah, stewards and guardians of Creation.
• Hakhel, an international Jewish Intentional Communities Incubator mobilizing the power of community to create and sustain Jewish identity, and revitalizing Jewish life by building vibrant, sustainable Jewish intentional communities of unaffiliated Jews around the world.

The change we need is vast, profound on many levels – so it is with deep gratitude to our supporters, partners, and talented educators with whom we celebrate this powerful array of programs and the great source of hope for the future that our collective impact represents. Together, we are worthy of the challenge that Shmita presents us – not just for the year gone by, but for the tremendous opportunities awaiting us in the seven years ahead.

Speak to the earth, and it will teach you. – Job 12:8

May we each find time this Elul to listen to the Torah of the earth, and to our loved ones all around us. And may we work together to inspire countless more life-changing, culture-changing experiences for communities everywhere.

Together, in partnership,

Jakir Manela                                                                                           Yoni Stadlin

Chief Executive Officer                                                                         Chief Program Officer

Our mission at Hazon-Pearlstone is to lead a transformative movement deeply weaving sustainability into the fabric of Jewish life, in order to create a healthier, more sustainable, and more equitable world for all. We connect people to the earth and to each other, catalyzing culture change and systemic change through Immersive Retreats, Jewish Environmental Education, and Climate Action.

The post Elul, Shmita, & Culture Change appeared first on Adamah.

“For is the tree of the field like a human?”

Shmita is riven with tension. On the one hand, it is introduced to us in Parashat Behar as a Shabbat of the land: ve-shavta ha-aretz Shabbat la-Shem—“the land shall abstain in a Shabbat of God” (Lev. 25:2). This brings to mind a deliberate, restorative pause. What we presently know about agriculture accords beautifully with this ancient wisdom, confirming that regular periods of fallowness enhance the production of nutritious food. 

And yet there is a traditional counterpoint to this rarified mood in the form of the principle of bal tashchit, the imperative to steward resources respectfully, not allowing them to go to waste. What about the wasted potential of all the food that could be grown to feed people but will not be? This charge became all the more poignant in modernity, when Jewish farmers faced again the very real problem of sustaining themselves and their community while observing shmita. Rabbis were tasked with finding a solution, which they did, albeit messily: it entails legal fictions and wasteful importation. 

This week’s parasha, Shoftim, includes an intriguing statement that acknowledges this dualistic tension of shmita. We’re now in the midst of Moses’ final speech, and he continues with instructions of how we are to govern the Land of Israel. Among the laws of conduct during war, the Torah tells us that when besieging an enemy city, we are forbidden to cut down fruit trees. It gives as the reason for this prohibition a perplexing explanation: ki ha-adam etz ha-sadeh (Deut. 20:19). 

The commentators are divided on the meaning of this grammatically tricky phrase. Some understand it as a question, “For is the tree of the field like a human?” On this reading, it is pointing out the difference between a human being, who might be an adversary, and a tree, which provides sustenance. Other commentators suggest the opposite. They read the phrase as a declarative, emphasizing the closeness, dependence or similarity between humans and trees: “For the tree of the field is like a human.” As developed in Jewish thought, ki ha-adam etz ha-sadeh functions according to both views: rabbinic authorities ruled that fruit trees may be cut down (as in first reading), but it also serves as support for bal tashchit (as in the second reading).

So is a tree spared in wartime because it is separate from the human realm—or the opposite, because of its life-sustaining qualities? The ambiguity does not allow us to say. Both meanings inhere in the Torah text, just as both meanings coexist within the context of shmita: we let the earth rest even as we struggle to let go of a year’s worth of potential sustenance.

The post Shoftim: On the Spiritual Tension of Shmita, By Dr. Tamar R. Marvin appeared first on Adamah.

“In releasing the land, our finances, and our fellows to freedom, we free ourselves as well, and this freedom ripples out in expansiveness and life.”

The new month of Elul famously opens us to a time of renewed intimacy. As we gear up for the Yamim Noraim, the holiest days of the year, we enter into the holy of holies of the Jewish heart.

The weekly Torah reading, Re’eh, follows a similar trajectory, detailing all the ways we can affirm our intimacy with holiness. We are offered a choice, between blessing and curse. This choice ripples through descriptions of the sanctuary and its service, ways to choose what is right and good in our eating, our serving true prophets, and prioritizing God in our tithing, our calendar, and our labor relations.

Of course, this series of blogs deals with Shmita, the recurrent cycle of seven years during which we allow the land to rest. Just as the Jewish people rest on the seventh day, so too the land of Israel is offered a chance to rest, recalibrate, and recenter. The expansion of the Shmita concept in Deuteronomy is one of taking a brilliant environmental piece of legislation, affirming that relational dance between the Land and the people, and then overlapping a layer of social justice as an integral part of that concern.

Even the way the topic is launched reveals that shift of focus: “Every seventh year you shall practice remission of debts.” Its first expression is not with the soil and our relationship to the earth, but rather the unequal distribution of wealth, and rebalancing the bonds that connect the lender and the debtor, the rich and the poor. The Torah moves to assert that social equity is no less a Shmita concern than its ecological priorities.

After articulating the lofty vision of an end to poverty, the Torah concedes that that dream, however worthy to keep our focus, is unlikely. In the meantime, we must keep our hearts open to the poor, and not pervert the arrival of Shmita into an excuse to close our hearts and our wallets toward their sustenance. “For there will never cease to be needy ones in your land, which is why I command you: open your hand to the poor and needy kin in your land (Deut. 15:11).”

Finally, that connection of Shmita to the welfare of the poor is extended to the wellbeing of Hebrew slaves. The Shmita year is to mark their return to freedom and their release from indentured servitude. Just as the land is meant to rest, so too are our fellow citizens. Slavery is not the normal condition; freedom is. Remarkably, the Torah makes explicit that this right to liberty extends to male and to female slaves. It is the essence of the human condition.

We are cautioned not to be resentful that we might have squeezed more money out of our fields, or from our loans, or from our slaves. Instead, the impulse to liberation embodied in Shmita bids us to also free our hearts from the stultifying anesthetic of greed and possession. In releasing the land, our finances, and our fellows to freedom, we free ourselves as well. Says the Torah, this freedom ripples out in expansiveness and life: “Moreover, the Lord your God will bless you in all you do (Deuteronomy 15:18).”

Rabbi Dr Bradley Shavit Artson (www.bradartson.com) holds the Abner and Roslyn Goldstine Dean’s Chair of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies and is Vice President of American Jewish University in Los Angeles. Rabbi Artson has long been a passionate advocate for social justice, human dignity, diversity and inclusion. He wrote a book on Jewish teachings on war, peace and nuclear annihilation in the late 80s, became a leading voice advocating for GLBT marriage and ordination in the 90s, and has published and spoken widely on environmental ethics, special needs inclusion, racial and economic justice, cultural and religious dialogue and cooperation, and working for a just and secure peace for Israel and the Middle East. A member of the Philosophy Department, he is particularly interested in theology, ethics, and the integration of science and religion. He mentors Camp Ramah in California in Ojai and Ramah of Northern California in the Bay Area. He is also dean of the Zacharias Frankel College in Potsdam, Germany, ordaining Conservative rabbis for Europe. A frequent contributor for the Times of Israel,  and a Contributing Writer for the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, he has a public figure Facebook page with over 75,000 likes. Rabbi Artson is the author of 12 books and over 250 articles, most recently Renewing the Process of Creation: A Jewish Integration of Science and Spirit. Married to Elana Artson, they are the proud parents of twins, Jacob and Shira.

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“In dealing with the land – working it, taking care of it, making it bloom – we have to be constantly connected to the Divine.”

The Torah portion of Ekev, the 3rd in the last book of the Torah, stretches from Deuteronomy 7:12 to 11:25. Among its topics are the blessings of obedience to God; the dangers of forgetting God; Moses recalling the making and re-making of the Tablets of Stone; the incident of the Golden Calf, Aaron’s passing, the Levite’s duties and, and the need to serve God. And, most importunately, is the emphasis of the Land of Israel’s specialness:

For the land that you are about to enter and possess is not like the land of Egypt from which you have come. There, the grain you sowed had to be watered by your own labors like a vegetable garden; but the land you are about to cross into and possess, a land of hills and valleys, soaks up its water from the rains of heaven. It is a land which Hashem your God looks after, on which Hashem your God always keeps an eye, from year’s beginning to year’s end” (Deut. 11:10-12).

The Land with special qualities also is the object of unique mitzvot. As we know, this year is a shmita year, and for farmers here, it’s a very serious matter. While we work to find deep meanings in this mitzvah, there is also no doubt that it’s one of the strangest, most challenging and criticized mitzvot we have.

If it’s hard for us now, how much more so it was in days past. Still, we have some exciting testimonies from days gone by. In 1742, one of the students of the “Ohr Hachayim” (Rabbi Chaim Ben Atar) wrote: “In Kfar Yasif near Akko there are balabatim (Jewish home-owners) that keep Land-dependent commandments, and during this year (1742) they don’t sow because it’s the seventh.”

Another testimony from 1863, tells about the difficulties of the new settlement, Motza, near Jerusalem. In a letter to the French Alliance Israélite Universelle (Kol Yisrael Chaverim) organization, headed at the time by Sir Moshe Montefiore, they wrote: “… and since that year was a shmita year, we dropped working the soil until 1861 ended…” The settlers’ lives especially at that time were extremely difficult, and yet, they were committed to making it even harder by keeping the shmita. Why?

The Malbim (1809-1879) asks the poignant question – why didn’t God just give the land of Egypt to the Israelites? After all, the Egyptians dealt harshly with the Israelites, and God was able to do anything, and as per our verse, the land of Egypt is easier to care for! But, he answers, God purposefully gave us a land that in dealing with it – working it, taking care of it, making it bloom – we will have to be constantly connected to the Divine. 

Rabbanit Michal Kohane is a graduate of Yeshivat Maharat, currently teaching Torah and Talmud and completing her accreditation in chaplaincy. She holds several degrees in Studies of Israel, education and psychology and served as Jewish community leader and educator in NY and NorCal, where she’s still a community scholar. Her first book “Hachug” was published in Israel in 2016 and her weekly blog on Torah and life is at www.miko284.com

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“If you know you have harmed the earth, know that you can heal it.”

On Shabbat Naḥamu, the Sabbath of Comfort the week after Tish’ah B’Av, we read Parashat Va-Etḥanan. Though Shabbat Naḥamu is about consolation and healing after lamenting Jewish traumas on the 9th of Av, the threat of destruction continues to loom in Parashat Va-Etḥanan. Moses tells the Israelites: 

“When you … are long established in the land, should you act wickedly… causing the LORD your God displeasure and vexation, I call heaven and earth this day to witness against you that you shall soon perish” (Deut. 4:25-26).

The calling of heaven and earth as witnesses is not just metaphorical. The natural world doesn’t just witness our actions, but actually suffers from humanity’s destructive tendencies. As Rabbi Harold Kushner puts it: “Heaven and earth do indeed witness against us when we make improper use of that with which God has blessed us. Poisoning the air and water, despoiling the environment do threaten to cause us to ‘perish from the land.’”

Our fate is not sealed, however. We can return to God and right our relationships with the earth: “Because Adonai is a compassionate God… and will not fail you, nor let you perish” (Deut. 4:29-31).

This dance between justice and mercy, between the threat of punishment to the promise of forgiveness and renewed relationship, reminds us that we are part of an ecosystem that has Divine roots. Just as the natural world ebbs and flows, in cycles of life and death, so too humanity moves through periods of loss to times of growth.

This is why Tu Be-Av, the holiday of love and relationship, comes six days after Tish’ah B’Av, the day of deepest mourning. A midrash about these two days teaches that the Israelites would dig graves every year on Tish’ah B’Av and sleep in them, waking to discover that more of their number had died. This went on every year until the 40 years of wandering in the desert were complete, whereupon they woke and everyone was still alive. By the 15th of the month, they realized that this chapter of their journey was over, and, in awe and gratitude, they climbed out of their graves into renewed life.

We too face a fearful reality, facing the consequences of the way we’ve treated God’s good earth. We must prepare for the grief of impending losses due to climate change, while committing to changing our ways and cultivating hope and faith. Like the Israelites, we must accept that we’ll witness loss as we seek a better future. But we can each do our small part in changing the world for the better by observing the covenant and practicing shmitah – returning to a healthy and loving relationship with the land.

In the words of Rebbe Naḥman of Breslov: if you believe that you can destroy, believe that you can repair. This is the message of both Va-Etḥanan and shmitah: if you know you have harmed the earth, know that you can heal it.

Though humans have bought into the idolatrous falsehood that we own the earth, we can still realize the truth that we are part of it. Though we will continue to suffer the consequences of abusing the natural world, it’s never too late to change our ways and find comfort and hope in our sacred relationships with the earth. We can do this through shmitah – letting go and letting the land renew itself, with heaven and earth as our witness.

Louis Polisson is a musician and rabbi. He was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary in 2018, where he also earned an MA in Jewish Thought focusing on Kabbalah and Ḥasidut. He currently serves as the rabbi of Congregation Or Atid in Wayland, Massachusetts and is a co-founder and co-leader of the Metrowest Jewish Mindfulness Community. He and his wife Gabriella Feingold released an album of original Jewish and nature-based folk music in November 2018 – you can listen at https://louisandgabriella.bandcamp.com/album/as-full-of-song-as-the-sea.

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