Bringing the themes of Passover to Earth Day, we connected with our partners at Adamah to discuss, “How can we all be free from environmental injustices?”. Read on for a conversation between Recustom’s Partnerships Manager, Jessica and Madeline, the Youth Empowerment, Education and Actions Manager at Adamah, the largest Jewish environmental organization in North America.

At Recustom, we provide tools to DIY Jewish rituals. Our full content library is free to explore here. And, you can learn more about how to connect with Adamah here. 

Jessica: I would love to hear a bit about your background and work with Adamah. 

Madeline: At Adamah we’re trying to catalyze vibrant contemporary Jewish life in connection with the earth. My focus is working with young people to do climate action, organizing, and education, which is rooted in Jewish environmental teachings, traditions and rituals.

Passover is both a call to environmental thinking and a call to climate justice work. It’s about liberation and finding autonomy in that process of collective liberation. My own background as a a young person who has experienced the front lines of the climate crisis in the Gulf South, who has been in a lot of movements, and who has watched the Jewish community suffer at the hands of climate change, both through experiencing things life wildfires and floods, particularly in my hometown, and who has watched the roots of Jewish tradition be jeopardized by changing climate patterns. All of this has brought me to my work at Adamah.

Jessica: Could you share a bit more about how you understand climate action to be a Jewish value and where you see that value ultimately intersecting with Passover? And, how might we bring this understanding into our day to day? 

Madeline: In Passover, so much of the tradition is rooted in the turning of the season, connecting with the foods that are available to eat seasonally. At the same time, we’re abstaining from wheat, from chametz. Therefore, we can draw this understanding of collective liberation coming from a process of figuring out what in our lives we want to take out, in order to move from narrowness into expansiveness. I think the climate crisis shows us the ways that we have fixated on a narrow understanding of what it means to produce and consume, based on a model of extraction from the land that is not regenerative and frankly, not aligned with Jewish time or practices. 

Passover is an opportunity to root out the many systems of oppression that brought us to the current moment: racism, white supremacy, unequal economic systems, anti-semitism. Passover is this big liberation holiday in which a relationship to land and an attunement to the time of year is put into relationship with justice. That’s a lot of what fighting the climate crisis is. It’s an opportunity to see how a different mode of relating to land, to agriculture, to resource extraction, renewable energy, to economy, can also be an opportunity for justice for so many marginalized groups that have suffered at the expense of the systems that have enabled the climate crisis historically.

Jessica: There is a broad spectrum of backgrounds who might be represented at a seder table: Jewish people, friends of Jewish people, people attending their first seder, people in interfaith relationships, and more, each with their own connection to the climate crisis. What advice do you have for hosts, who want to bring these ideas into their next seder or gathering?  

Madeline: The entrypoint that comes to mind are the plagues. There is a tradition in liberal seders in recent decades of talking about modern day plagues in connection to the climate crisis.

What I think needs to be probed more deeply is that the plagues are not these injustices that are festering in Egyptian society that the Israelites are rooting out in their liberation tale. Rather, they are inflicted upon the Egyptians in the process of liberation. So, they’re really complicated. They’re fraught because what they demonstrate is that the process of coming into a better future of freedom, sometimes has measures of violences that come as a side effect, or even a deliberate response. And that’s really complicated. When we think about the climate crisis, there’s a lot that needs to change in our world. We’re experiencing how, when those in power don’t shift, the consequences are like plagues. I think there’s a lot of interesting room for conversation there.

We can interpret the plagues and climate disasters as the ways that people suffer at the hands of their leaders. The Egyptian people are different from Pharaoh, and yet everybody, and sometimes including the Israelites (but mostly including the Egyptians) suffer from the plagues. From there we can draw parallels to the ways that the climate crisis is manifesting for everybody. What losses might happen? What would we actually need to think of ourselves as shifting and what might feel tense? What pleasures or privileges do we feel like we’re losing on a shifting planet? And actually, how can we transcend that mindset of narrowness and loss to the expansiveness of getting out of narrowness into a justice oriented to climate justice?

The practice of storytelling and the plagues, particularly thinking that you personally came out of Egypt and being in conversation with our descendants and ancestors are really ripe topics for understanding the meaning of the climate crisis as an emotional, somatic, intergenerational experience and an imperative to action today. 

Jessica: How might hosts empower attendees to bring their own stories to the table? And, to feel empowered to talk about something that could feel sensitive and challenging?

Madeline: I love a good discussion prompt. What’s beautiful about the seder is that in the enactment of the ritual, everything is thematic, everything has meaning to be parsed, and that meaning is really oriented in time. It’s not just that we’re telling the story of the past. We’re figuring out why this past has meaning to us today. 

I would recommend finding one or two resources that resonate and preparing a few discussion questions to invite in conversation. Ask participants to share their own stories– maybe you, as the leader, could model telling a story first, making a connection between the personal, collective, and present moment. I think there are lots of different ways to do it. What’s beautiful about Jewish ritual is that it’s always an invitation to interrogate our current world and how it shapes our understanding of the past into the future in creative ways.

Check-out discussion prompts from Adamah for your next seder or to use year round on Recustom and explore Adamah’s full Passover 2025 resource here.

The post From Passover to Earth Day appeared first on Adamah.

“We are given an extra push to think about our holiday of liberation in more expansive ways.”

Earth Day and Passover have a few things in common, from honoring the land upon which we live, to giving back (aka tikkun olam). In 2024, the two holidays share not only a few key themes, but overlapping dates. Earth Day will be celebrated all day on Monday April 22; and that evening, Passover begins. For many, the two holidays will be celebrated together this year.

The intersection of Jewish beliefs, environmental justice, plant-based meals, and earth-honoring rituals is a natural one. That’s why Green Matters spoke to four proud Jewish climate activists to learn more about the joyous connection shared between Passover and Earth Day.

…

Yoni Stadlin believes in challenging old ways of thought.

“This year, Earth Day falls on the eve of Passover, representing the confluence of the ancient Jewish festival of liberation and springtime harvest with our contemporary holiday elevating awareness of our connection to and responsibility for the Earth,” Yoni Stadlin, the chief immersive programs officer at Adamah, writes to Green Matters in an email.

“The Passover story reminds us that sometimes, a dramatic shift, such as getting up and leaving what we have been accustomed to, is what is called for,” he continues. “With Earth Day coinciding with Passover this year, we are called to ask ourselves and each other, ‘what dramatic exodus from our old ways is needed to ensure the protection of our natural world?'”

This article is part of Green Matters’ 2024 Earth Day programming, It’s Giving… Earth Day: A series about the people and organizations who are “giving” Earth Day 24/7. We hope these stories inspire you to embody the spirit of Earth Day all year round.

By Jamie Bichelman.

The post Passover and Earth Day Converge: Jewish Climate Activists Share What This Means to Them (Exclusive) appeared first on Adamah.

This year’s “People’s Seder” was co-hosted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and focused on food insecurity.

The post Adamah leads blessing at White House Passover Seder appeared first on Adamah.

Dear All,

The whole world we live in, right now, is “both/and” rather than “either/or.”
Everything happens simultaneously.
Everything and its opposite is true.
Things overlap and repeat, fold in upon themselves.

I feel this strongly in relation to the economy, as well as so much else.

It is good that the federal government has learned some of the (negative) lessons of 2008, and before that of Herbert Hoover. Paul Krugman has argued repeatedly that it’s wrong to fear inflation in a deflationary environment. If the government were not printing money – had not printed money this last year – then millions and perhaps tens of millions would be out of work, perhaps homeless, perhaps hungry. And it is always those who already have the least who suffer the most.

So: printing money is good. And the American Rescue Plan is especially commendable because, for the first time since perhaps Lyndon Johnson, there’s a (somewhat) focused attempt to get the most help to those who are poorest. This is what the Torah enjoins.

And yet one other consequence of this is that all sorts of bubbles are developing. From GameStop to the art market to baseball cards, asset prices are (over-)inflating all over the place. This game of musical chairs may last for years rather than months; but the further things go up the further that (some at least) will have to fall.

It is my nature to think about things like this in relation to Jewish tradition; in relation to the Torah, the Jewish holidays, the calendar; in relation to norms and ideals implicit within Jewish teaching.

I’m struck that in recent years a chunk of American Jewish life has aligned itself firmly with the progressive left; and another, somewhat smaller chunk has aligned itself, no less vociferously, with the right. In each case there’s an implicit (sometimes explicit) presumption that such-and-such is enjoined or prohibited by the Torah.

I’m not persuaded that this is either useful or valid. It’s not useful because I don’t need Jewish tradition to validate progressive or conservative positions. Each can be argued for in its own right.

What’s much more interesting to me is to understand Jewish tradition as something different, strange or challenging. It is ancient, certainly in its origins, and it comes from a world that we can barely imagine; and yet, at the same time, human beings are human beings; and so its teachings are grounded in presumptions about human behavior that are entirely recognizable today.

If you want a really fun read, over Pesach, as a follow-on to the last John Grisham you read, I strongly commend Rabbi Dr. Julia Watts Belser’s Power, Ethics and Ecology in Jewish Late Antiquity. It’s a close reading of masechet ta’anit, and a worthy companion to the superb 8-part online Hazon series that Rabbi Yedidya Sinclair recently completed. One of the things she writes, early on, is:

“In contrast to approaches that assert straightforward, proscriptive ethical conclusions I suggest that the key ethical contribution of the Bavli’s aggadah lies precisely in its tendency to avoid a single, moralistic response to complex questions. Instead, the Bavli’s aggadah reveals the power of story to convey moral complexity, to facilitate a deeper, more compelling engagement with ethical questions, and to emphasize the importance of self-critical reflection as a central ethical obligation.”

This quote is one small part of a (frankly) somewhat obscure academic book.

I’m fascinated that Rabbi Belser and Rabbi Sinclair have I think fairly different outlooks on the world, and yet,  independently, have read ta’anit in remarkably similar ways. They see it as richly valuable in offering multiple and complex frames with which to complexify and confuse and challenge our sense of relationship with the world that, ultimately, sustains all of us.

That quote, above, from Rabbi Belser; that’s not just about ta’anit, in my view. Applied more broadly I think it’s a key insight into Jewish tradition overall.
Jewish tradition overall is often resistant to a single moralistic response to complex questions.
And Jewish tradition overall “reveals the power of story to convey moral complexity, to facilitate a deeper, more compelling engagement with ethical questions, and to emphasize the importance of self-critical reflection as a central ethical obligation.”

So I offer all of this in the run-up to Pesach, and in relation to this moment in America and in the West.

Giving money to people in need at a time of great dislocation is a necessary act of help.

But wouldn’t we be a stronger, healthier, and calmer society if every person in this country – every single person in this country – had free health-care from cradle to grave? Health outcomes would be better. Life expectancy would be greater. Inequalities would be reduced. The overall cost of health would go down. But at a still deeper level: the absence of a societal safety-net, including a sufficient health-care safety net, itself is a spur to needless competition, stress, to needing more money, because money functions to protect people, given how scary this postcapitalist world has ultimately become. In other words: not having proper health care worsens health outcomes; but it also, in a far deeper sense, makes people insecure, and in turn helps drive what becomes – in due course – the overconsumption of the world.

So: I realize there’s a lot going on in this email :-).

The connections between these various topics seem obvious to me – this is, to me, one single train-of-thought. I get that it may not seem that way to you.

But I leave you simply with these four questions, for your seder table – whatever kind of seder table it is for you this year:

• In what ways do you think that Jewish tradition endorses key developments in contemporary life, and in what ways do you think it critiques them?
• Is being a good Jew the same as being a good person? (If yes: why bother being Jewish? If no: how is it different, and how do you relate to those differences?)
• As you read the Torah – or the Pesach story – in what ways does Jewish tradition most challenge America right now? And how does it most challenge you?
• Finally: if seder night is (as indeed it is) “freedom from…. [want/oppression/slavery etc.]” and then Shavuot is (in due course) “freedom to… [choose to self-limit; do or not do certain things; etc.], what do these distinctions mean to you right now? How might a year of Covid helped you to clarify and disentangle these two kinds of freedom?

Shabbat shalom – and chag kasher v’sameach,

Nigel

PS: Isabella Freedman has a small number of spots left for the intermediate days and for the end of Pesach, and I think maybe room for one more family for the first weekend. If you would like to join us, email simone.stallman@hazon.org.

PPS: We’ve now launched The Shmita Prizes. Pass along the link to the artists and creatives amongst your friends and family. And pencil in Sunday, May 2 for a half-day online Limmud Day of Learning on the topic of shmita. 11am-noon ET, and then 5-8pm ET. Details to follow.

PPPS: And, speaking of health, here’s Prince Charles in a just published short essay on the relationship between Western medicine and complementary health.

The post The Economy, Krugman, Healthcare, Pesach – and Power, Ethics & Ecology in Late Jewish Antiquity appeared first on Adamah.

Dear All,

There’s an old chasidic story about someone who fears that the angel of death is coming for them, at a particular place and a particular time. Quickly they change their plans. They go to a different village… and then of course the angel of death is right there, in that different village, waiting to meet them, exactly at the appointed time.
And the message of the story: when our time is up, our time is up.

I wish for all of us long life, for sure.
But it’s not unhelpful to be reminded of our mortality.
For most of human history we knew that we were vulnerable, we saw death. We lived without penicillin. Women died far more frequently in childbirth. We died of polio and malaria, we died when the wrong flea bit us, we died of an abscess or a ruptured appendix.
Only when I was writing a hesped for my grandma did I learn that as well as giving birth to my mother and my aunt, she had also had two sons, each of whom died young. I never knew that.

And so to this week. A friend’s mother died, and a first-ever virtual shiva.
Another friend’s mother died, and thus death and dislocation across distance.
Then Tina, z”l, a friend of my mother’s for 65 years.
And another friend’s father is in the ICU, fighting for his life… and is this his time, or not?
We none of us know.
We pray for life. But the angel of death – the angel who passes over the homes of the Israelites, the night before they leave Egypt; the angel of death whom we sing about in Chad Gadya, at the end of the seder… the angel of death is more visible right now.

And this shocks us, unsettles us, destabilizes us.
This night is different because this year we hear the angel’s wings, we see its shadow, crossing our cities and our homes.

And meanwhile, I’m walking in the park, on a beautiful day. The sun shining. Ducks bobbing in the reservoir. (The new field hospital, white tents, over to my left.) Yesterday I saw a raccoon, just climbing a tree. The trees are blossoming, exploding with color and with life. Two friends had babies.
My newish nephew gurgles happily on FaceTime; he should be alive in 2100, thriving, a healthy 80-something, in a world yet to be imagined.

And from this unique moment, I really believe in teshuva, in repentance and return.
It is occasionally too easy for a job, a role – being CEO of Hazon, for instance – to become formulaic.  “Judaism and the environment.” Yes. “Living more sustainably.” – yes. “The Hazon Seal of Sustainability;” Jewish Outdoor, Food, Farming & Environmental Education,” the importance of retreats and immersive education – yes, and yes, and yes.

I believe in all those things and we are part of them. (And a special shout-out to JFNA, the Jewish Federations of North America, who have done a spectacular job since all this started.)

But I want for myself and for all of us to step outside those things, outside the habits and patterns, the organizational jargon, the acronyms.

For now: freshness. Springtime. Away with the old crockery. Fresh herbs and fresh resolutions.
Reconnecting with friends and family.
The greatness of humor and laughter. The need for connection, and the new ways of connecting.
The power of kindness.
Less time in cars and planes and instead the healing power of trees, natural things, the living world all around us.

May we not forget these things, when “normal life” returns. The true ground of our lives is not organizational, it is human, cultural, societal, religious; and it is the earth itself, adamah, soil that is alive and oxygenated, soil that we liven or deplete, each day, by how we live.

And so may our springtime resolutions be a springboard to reconnection and our better selves.

And if fiscal policy can swing within a week to encompass two trillion new dollars of emergency spending, perhaps in the future it could swing more rationally and more slowly, to build better health systems for all?

May we not forget that the skies, once again, like the skies after 9/11, are clear and fresh.
Pollution is down, wild creatures are tiptoeing back into old/new habitats. Asthma rates are going down. Can we find future ways to accomplish these goods without needing tragedy to cause them?
Can we renew Jewish communities – schools, synagogues, camps, JCCs, federations, retreat centers – so that these values are central and not incidental to how we live, learn, and celebrate?

Can we, in short, and after all this, engender the good that is so prevalent amidst death and illness – without the death and illness itself?

And, maybe, by the way, we cannot.
Maybe human nature is too damaged.
Maybe we are too selfish, too much out for ourselves, too acquisitive, too argumentative, too fragile in our egos and too unconstrained in our ids.
But I don’t believe so. Jewish tradition sees us as imperfect, but always able to learn, to reflect, to self-correct, to influence each other for good.

So these are my thoughts, heading into seder night.

And a dear friend reminded me of a different chasidic story, germane to all this, with which I will end.

A man wants to go find eliyahu hanavi, Elijah the prophet.
(It is Eliyahu for whom we open the door, near the end of the seder, and it is for Eliyahu that we spill drops of wine for the fifth cup, the messianic cup.)

So the man prepares himself, gathers food, sets off, because he has heard that Eliyahu will be at this one particular seder, in this small village, in the middle of nowhere.

And finally, after a long journey, he approaches the house, old and ramshackle.
He looks in through the cracked window at an extended family, gathered for the seder.
They are wearing their yontef finest… and yet he can see that they are poor, their clothes are patched, the walls are bare; even for this, the greatest meal of the year, their fare is very simple food.
And he wonders: can Eliyahu really be here?

Sadly he realizes that he must have come to the wrong house, that Eliayahu cannot possibly be here at this table. So he starts to walk away.
And as he walks away he forgets about Eliyahu, and is simply heartened by the warmth, the children smiling and singing, the lights of the candles.
And then he thinks about the fact that he has so much food, and they have so little – and isn’t this the night when we say, “let all who are hungry come and eat…?”
So on a whim he turns and retraces his steps, thinking to share his food.
Nervously, a little shy, finally he knocks on the door.
He hears small footsteps. One of the children opens the door, slowly, slowly – and then the child’s face lights up, and he turns and shouts back to his family –
you see Tateh!
you see Mameh! 

I told you Eliyahu really would come to visit us…!!

So: think about this, as you spill Elijah’s cup, as we all do.
We each are the child. We each are the parent. We each right now are in a moment of fear, or despair, or confusion.
And, yet, we each – also – are Eliyahu. We each are reaching out, offering, giving, helping, being generous in word or in deed. Our small kindnesses may be more impactful than we realize.
And we have within us, unknown, unknown to those around us, unknown to we ourselves; we have within us the seeds of redemption, the seeds of hope, the seeds of new vision.

So I bless you, and me, and all of us that the angel of death… shouldn’t visit us until our time is done; until we have really brought our own unique gifts to the world.
May this year’s very different night of seder call us indeed to freedom, to kindness, to connection, to wisdom, and to a truly more sustainable world for all.

Chag sameach,

Nigel

PS – more prosaically: after a grueling and rather boundary-less five weeks, please bear with us as we put up this auto-responder on most, and ideally all, Hazon email accounts from late tomorrow through Thursday, April 16th:

We are closed for Pesach, and we’re treating all emails during Pesach as chametz – null and void. If your email is important, please resend it on Friday, April 17th, the day after Pesach.

PPS: Counting the omer starts Thursday night. And then please join us on Earth Day, April 22nd, as we #soundthecall.

The post Chad gadya, a raccoon in the park, and a second chasidic story. appeared first on Adamah.

I was present once, when a teacher told a full room, “In the years ahead, we will be called to be both the hospice caretakers of the old world, the old structures, and midwives of the new one.” It has stuck with me deeply ever since, as I’ve attuned my senses to a crossfade of sorts, watching the volume of an old way being turned down as the volume of a new song increases.

With Passover just a few short days away, perhaps we could think of this crossfade like the mythic Israelites leaving Egypt, escaping the cacophony of slavery while cranking up the volume on liberation. At the crux of that crossfade is the 10th plague, when God vows to kill all Egyptian firstborn (Exodus 12:12). This of course, leads directly to the Israelite exodus across the sea. But this is not the whole story. In that same breath, God also promises to bring judgment on the false gods of Egypt (12:12). According to the midrash (Exodus Rabbah 16:3), the true and lasting liberation comes not only from the physical leaving of Egypt, but from the Israelites’ emphatic refusal to worship the idols of Egyptian rule. Yes, freedom is physical. The Israelites had to leave Egypt to be free. But freedom is also a mentality, a liberatory worldview. So it wasn’t until the Israelites left Egypt and shirked off the slave mentality that true freedom was achieved.

We are in a parallel moment of mentality shift right now. In just a few short days, Covid-19 has shut down our systems and thrown our various social structures into near total collapse. And in so doing, it has exposed the cavernous cracks of inequity and vulnerability that run deep within our own soil. This pandemic has shined a sharp and unmistakable light onto the tragic and violent impact of worshipping our culture’s false idols.

So our response to Covid-19 must be swift and must unequivocally prioritize the physical and material needs of those most vulnerable right now. That is why, as Hazon Detroit, we’ve focused our attention over the last few weeks on supporting the Metro Detroit Jewish community in growing fresh produce to donate to those in need, through our Relief Garen Initiative. And that is why we’ve been hustling all around the state to rescue food and deliver it to barren pantry shelves, or directly to hungry households. Because people are hurting and we see it as our Jewish and human duty to care for our neighbors’ material welfare.

But our response can’t end there. Because what is required now is also a mentality shift. A spiritually rooted transformation in the way we prioritize people and services and support in this society. A radical call to put sustainability environmental, economic, and social/cultural before profit. A society-wide commitment to living lighter on this planet, to living in more right relationship with each other and the earth, a shift to a new song. Because for many, life has qualified as “crisis” since birth, and because for all of us, we are decades into a global climate crisis that almost certainly will outpace this current pandemic in severity and scope by any number of scales. For us to come out the other side of this larger existential crossfade, it will require that we soften our hearts enough to emphatically, collectively, and resolutely execute judgment on the futile false gods that plague this society and embrace a new way of being human, a new way of building society, a new way of being a neighbor. In more ways than one, it is time to grow. Because nothing less will do.

And as that old song fades, we will continue to amplify and turn up and sing along to the fierce and powerful and sweetly sung songs of liberation. With prophetic lyrics of collective sustainability, humility, compassion, empathic caring, and mutual support rising from all corners. We will learn what it means to really take care of one another, what we’re really capable of, and what’s really demanded of us by being alive in just this moment. And then, together, with that song on our tongues, we will help midwife the future that we know is already on its way.

In loving community,

Rabbi Nate, Wren, Marla, Brittany, and Hannah

The post Hazon Detroit: Time to Grow appeared first on Adamah.

Dear All,

Seder is one night – in Israel.
In chutz la’aretz – ie, outside of Israel – it’s two nights, so next Thursday night is the second night of seder.

And for most of the Jewish world, as we know, these two nights are indeed going to be different nights, as we figure out how to do seders by Zoom, or in small (very small) groups, and so on. It will be weird. And there will be lots of riffs on plagues, lots of haggadah supplements to download, and so on.

Hazon’s gift to you is a frame for the second night, for Thursday night.

Normally, at the end of the evening – with kids running wild, the table in chaos, the meal just finishing, various people conked out because it is so late or they’ve eaten so much or drank so much – right then, we count the omer. No wonder we don’t properly pay attention to it.

So our gift to you this year is – don’t bury it. Make it a conceptual focus of your second night seder.

The first night – celebrate that you’re alive.
That your family made it to America or Italy or England or wherever you are.
That – hopefully – you’ve survived this plague, so far.
That our doctors and health care workers are acting courageously, under impossible conditions; and that our legislators, for once, came together and quickly passed important legislation.

All this is freedom from. It’s freedom from want and oppression; from the absences our ancestors lived with their whole lives, just a century or two ago – without dentists or antibiotics or health systems, perhaps without democracy, without fast roads or clean water or… Zoom. Indeed.
So Wednesday night, as we celebrate the seder, this is an important part.

But Thursday night is different. It’s a riff on the seder. Much we did the night before, we may or may not do again, or in the same way. But the second night we count the omer.

Here’s a quick frame for this – and then some questions for your table… or your Zoom.

The frame
An “omer” is an agricultural measure. The barley harvest and the wheat harvest were growing, from Pesach to Shavuot, and we were an agrarian people – even, indeed, an indigenous people. So we counted up the days, one by one, until the harvest. That’s why Shavuot (and the word means “weeks,” as in the seven weeks from Pesach to Shavuot) is also chag ha’asif, the festival of gathering (the harvest.)

But then there was a second thing. Because Shavuot is zman matan torateinu, the time of the giving of the Torah. So the rabbis – and certainly the more mystical amongst them – gave a second overlay. This was the sefirot. Seven aspects of “the divine”; or, if you like, seven aspects of human behavior or character – kindness or openness; discipline, boundaries; balance and beauty, and so on.
(Click here for an explanation of the sefirot and here for the website of R Simon Jacobson, who has a beautiful book and kavanah and mailing list for counting the sefirot.)

And the count from Pesach to Shavuot – counting the omer, starting on Thursday night – is about moving from freedom from to freedom to. We’ve left Egypt. We’ve left slavery. Now we’re in the wilderness. No rules, no Torah, radical freedom. We learn that this is hard – we don’t like it – we miss, indeed, Egypt (a kind of Stockholm Syndrome on the part of the entire Jewish people.)

We learn the hard way that we can’t live with radical freedom, we actually need boundaries and limitation, to create a good society, to live a good life. And hence Shavuot, and the giving of the Torah.

What this means for Thursday night.

A few ideas:

• Make it thematically central to your evening. Introduce it at the start.
  Explain you’ll end with counting the omer – but that you’ll begin, for instance, by having everyone go around and share one freedom that they have, that they shouldn’t take for granted (or that one of their ancestors may not have been able to enjoy); and then, what’s one freedom that you personally have, or the world has, that you think is doing us some damage? 
  And this alone – and in this moment – may turn into a rich opening for your seder and a rich conversation during the evening;
• As you go through the seder – think about the different riffs on freedom that come up, the tension between freedom and order, the way that Pesach creativity itself arises from the structure, from the order of the seder;
• And then – after the meal – as you count the omer together, I invite you to do two things:
  • First – commit to try to count every day. If you remember every day, and count with a bracha, a blessing – super. But if you forget – count anyway. Count the days to Shavuot. Count the days up through this plague, through diminutions in our freedom of movement, and back – hopefully – towards the light. This year will be a good year to count;
  • And second, if you are minded to, commit to journaling each day about freedom from and freedom to. What you wish to be free from. What you wish to be free to do, or not do. What our world needs us collectively to be free to do more of or less of.

At its heart – make this period in our lives truly count.
And figure out for yourself, and whomever you’re sedering with, what you want it to mean; how, come Shavuot, you’ll be a better person, and help the world be a better world.

If you make these ideas a central theme of your second seder, you will not only bring the evening to life in new ways; you’ll not only engender a rich conversation; but you may also, as I believe the tradition fully intends, have Pesach not be an ending, or a night – or 7 or 8 nights – unto itself; but rather the beginnings of a journey. And this year – this year – that journey will be unique and important.

Two last things.
There are two days that punctuate this year’s counting of the omer that I want to remind you of.

April 22nd – the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. Our campaign #soundthecall is gathering steam.
Sound your shofar, if you have one, at noon EDT that day – and post it on social media.
Click here to find more about what this stands for and why it is so important. And, if nothing else, please share this with your rabbi, with friends, with anyone who has a shofar, or anyone who has a drum or a trumpet or who simply wants to stand up in public that day and #soundthecall – a call for change, a call to learn our lessons, a call for healthcare and for environmental sustainability, a call not to bequeath our craziness to the generations that are to come. (And: daytime on April 22nd is the 13th day of the omer – yesod she’b’gevurah. The week is about discipline, and boundaries. And yesod is about fundamentals, in all senses. So this is, as chance would have it, a day in which we are indeed invited to think about the boundaries we need in this world, and how we get back to the fundamentals of living well and safely and equitably, here on this small busy planet.

Lag b’Omer, the evening of May 11th and the day of May 12th. It’s the 33rd day of the omer, and a minor holiday. In Israel a time of bonfires and barbecues. Everyone forgets what it’s about. But it’s about a plague. And the plague started, finally, to cease, and people stopped dying – and so we celebrated, and for twenty centuries we have celebrated every year.  Well – this year this will take on new meaning. If the epidemiologists are right, by then – PG – the tide will have started to turn. May it be so.

These two dates – talk about them at the seder.
Put them on your calendar – literally – and decide how you’ll choose to register them; you might make that part of your meal time conversation, ahead of the count itself.
Understand that when we start counting, on Thursday night, we are beginning a count that leads to Shavuot and is punctuated by these two dates – the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, and Lag b’Omer, in the year of the plague.

And so – let’s make it count…

Shabbat shalom, chag sameach,

Nigel

[hr]

#soundthecall this Earth Day
April 22nd is the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, a time of celebration and a call to action. Let’s #soundthecall online worldwide: share a video of yourself on social media sounding a shofar or other instrument to stand up for the well being of planet Earth. Then this Earth Day, though we are physically distant, we will join virtually at 12pm ET to simultaneously blow shofar, sing songs, and raise our voices. RSVP for April 22nd and learn more at hazon.org/soundthecall.

And, be sure to join us live on Zoom on Monday, April 6th at 12pm ET for the official campaign launch. Learn more.

The post Next Thursday night — and #soundthecall on April 22nd appeared first on Adamah.

The glorious energy of the month of Nissan is a breath of fresh air, a time of birth, of new starts, a spring-time for the spirit and soul.  The invitation of this month, which begins this year on March 26 of the Gregorian calendar, has been called “the first of months of the year for you” (Exodus 12:2).  Ramban, the medieval scholar and kabbalist, explains that although Nissan is not the beginning of the year (which is in Tishrei), we are alerted that there is a primacy of this month. Just as we count the days of the week with respect to Shabbat, we are to count, order and orient our year around Nissan.  The reason? It was during this month that the Israelites made their exodus from Egypt, which journey embodies and symbolizes the energy of redemption.¹ We are on notice: redemption is the prime directive for our lives. 

Redemption is the ultimate freedom.  It is a process, a difficult process, one that most of us have yet to understand, let alone achieve. It is an internal state of being.  We can access this state, even as we may feel trapped by voluntary or involuntary quarantine at this time. As so wisely observed by Antoine de St. Exupery ² “I know but one freedom, and that is the freedom of the mind.” We see in our exodus story that even with the divine energies and Moshe urging the peoples to leave Egypt/Mitzraim  (the place of constriction), some did not leave.  We had, and always have, choice as to our internal state of mind, state of being. We have guidance, and help, but it is up to us. 

The challenging process of attaining ultimate freedom can be broken into four steps. These steps were enumerated, according to Torah, by God explaining to Moshe what was to happen in the exodus:  v’hotzeiti (I will bring you forth from Mitzraim); v’hitzalti (I will rescue you from slavery); v’ga’alti (I will redeem you); and v’lakakhti, v’yad’atem (I will take you to me, and you will know) (Exodus 6:6-6:7). Let’s review these steps, which I will translate into the language of the people’s internal states.

V’hotzeiti: I will bring you forth from Mitzrayim – from the place of constriction. This is the very first, basic step to freedom: recognizing one is not free, that there is some aspect of enslavement – and a desire for release, even if there is no conception of what that might mean.  Harriet Tubman, a slave in the United States who fought to help others escape through the Underground Railway, said “I helped hundreds to escape. I could have helped hundreds more, if only they had known they were slaves.” There are ways in which we are not free and not aware, or only dimly aware, and not courageous enough to face our lack of freedom.  Sometimes we have to hit rock bottom before a crying out comes, almost unbidden, from the depths of our souls. We awaken to a shrieking from our divine aspect: there is something gravely wrong, your soul is endangered. And so the Israelites after many years of enslavement, cried out, a wordless cry that reached the highest places (Exodus 2:23-2:24). 

V’hitzalti: I will rescue you from your enslavement. This is a process of releasing ourselves from our attachments that keep us from even seeing that we are constricted, and then from taking steps to win more freedom. The attachments are cemented in our being starting from birth, through teachings of our society, our tribe, our family. Often, the attachments are to ways of existence that are the very ground of our being, things that we take so much for granted that we don’t even see them, even when we are put to a question. It is like asking the goldfish in the bowl, how is the water today?  and she responds with confusion, what water? 

And so we have the teaching of Abraham, being told Lekh Lekha, go on an internal journey, walk away from your land, from your birth place, from your father’s house (Genesis 12:1). In order to find himself, to learn to listen to and be guided by the God-self within, Abraham first had to have some clarity.  For this, Abraham had to distance from all of the distorted teachings of his youth, to be able to see that what he had been taught was not the greater truth. 

We, too, need a distance in order to learn to trust when we hear that inner voice, guiding us. We must stop ignoring the counsel from our God-self,  despite our culture, our tribe, our parents telling us that it is fantasy, or even arrogance, to think we are being counselled. We must have the courage to detach from the things that have supported us, in order to have a more powerful, truer support. Oh, this is so hard. 

V’ga’alti: And I will redeem you.  Redemption, at last, is to be free to be fully who you are.  To do the work, the tafkid, that only you can do.  And, most critically, to recognize that  you are indeed part human, part divine. That you have been running the show from the human part alone, to your detriment. That your God-self, or Source-self, has been waiting and longing to be your partner, to counsel and guide you if you would only loosen the reins.  That if only you would allow the wisdom and guidance to flow, constantly connecting with that divine part of you, there would be such an expansion of your capabilities and wisdom. If only. 

This is the teaching of God/Source, explaining to Moshe why Moshe would succeed in persuading Pharoah, and the Israelite slaves to rebel and leave: “I will be with you, and this is the sign for you that I sent you” (Exodus 3:12).  That is, Source is telling Moshe that Source is inside, guiding and directing. You will not see me, but you will feel and hear me inside, I (as always) will be with you.  But Moshe continued to resist, saying I am not a man of words, my speech is slow. And God responds that “I will be with you as you speak, and direct you in what you say” (Exodus  14:10-14:12). That is, if you allow my presence to operate within you, you will be fine. As it turned out, Moshe still refused to allow his higher self, and so at first his brother did the talking to Pharoah.  But Moshe’s God-self wins out in the end as Moshe learns to allow his God-self to partner. Then, seamlessly and without further ado, Moshe speaks, at great length and with great results, first to Pharoah, and for another 40 years to the Israelites. 

Moshe’s struggle demonstrates how very difficult it is to allow our God-self to work with us, how much we resist giving up the things that we “know”, and resist letting go of having our intellect control our lives. After all, no one will understand, or believe us. Maybe we should just ignore that voice urging us on. Of what consequence is that voice – I still feel alone.  Yes, all of this. This freedom is hard-won. 

V’Lakakhti li l’am: I will take myself to be one with the people.  I am one with each of you. We are one. V’yadata and you will know the I AM, the Source within you. The final freedom is to know at your core who you are, that your direct access to Source/God is within.  This is the realization that each of us can tap into the power that is greater than we knew, for wisdom, for strength, for counsel. That each day, each task/tafkid, will be richer, deeper, more accurate if we are constantly checking in with our God-self, if we allow the flow of divinity to help us in all moments. If we allow the balance of human-self and divine-self in our lives. 

This freedom is a crossing of the bridge that has separated us from our divine aspect.  We are to finally heal the split between our human part and our divine part. This is God telling the Israelite people, at the end of their 40 year journey toward freedom  “You have seen all of the signs and wonders [of the exodus] but until this day you have not had a heart-mind to understand, eyes to see, ears to hear.” (Deuteronomy 29:1 – 29:3). In other words, we have to be ready, emotionally, mentally, spiritually,  to take in this final freedom. It is a long and arduous process, symbolized in the Torah story by a 40 year journey.  

I believe that as a people, and indeed as a species, we are on the cusp of readiness to take on the responsibility required  to know and operate as full human/divine beings. To have wisdom and abilities beyond what the human aspect alone can offer. To be at all times in a place of great love, and to act at all times from a place of great love.

Are you in?

Rabbi Ora Weiss is a member of the Hazon Rabbinical Council.

Notes

¹ Ramban, commentary on Exodus 12:2.

² Better known for authoring “The Little Prince”

The post Freedom You Have Not Yet Known: The Energy of the Month of Nissan appeared first on Adamah.

I generally start cleaning for Pesach around January time, much to the displeasure of those living with me. The cleaning takes the form of taking everything out of the cupboard, cleaning up any dust and crumbs, then putting everything back at right angles to each other. Frankly, I’m not that fussed if it’s accessible or not, just so long as it is tidy. I know that schmutz is not Chametz (leavened products prohibited at Pesach), but the cleaning is a ritual that I really enjoy. It’s a time of year where people ask me a lot “Where did you put the…” and I normally don’t know, because I’m not really paying attention to what I’m putting back in the cupboards, but more the fact that there won’t be any crumbs leftover. 

And like pretty much everything in all of our lives right now, that’s changed this year. With childcare canceled, I’ve become a full-time homeschooling Mom for two hyperactive toddlers and I’m constantly looking for things to do with them. So as I’m cleaning, I’m going through every shelf, thinking about what can be repurposed to make a toy, what can be the focus of tomorrow’s lesson with them and what wonders had I squirreled away for a rainy day. 

I’ve discovered all kinds of knick-knacks, and even the everyday items like tins and string I’m thinking about more creatively. 

I don’t always believe that there is a message about current affairs in the weekly Torah reading but this week the portion is “Vayakhel-Pekudei”-  Vayakhel meaning “gather together” and Pekudei meaning counting, so it’s hard to think of a more pertinent reading for the week. 

From this week’s reading, we learn the laws of Shabbat, specifically that the labor which is prohibited on Shabbat is “Malechet Machshevet”, which means creative, or thoughtful, work. These are the various types of labor that were needed to build the Mishkan, the portable Temple which the Jews carried with them during their years of wandering on the way to Israel. 

The Biblical commandment against working on Shabbat says, that if you take two stones and make a wall, that’s forbidden, but if you mindlessly put a stone down on top of another one because it was too heavy to hold, or because you were tidying up, that’s not considered labor on Shabbat. Whilst the result is the same, you didn’t put any thought into what your work or what the materials at hand could be used to make. You were more interested in the action you were doing (putting something down) than the result (making a wall). And the conclusion is that you’re not going to manage to build the Mishkan that way. 

Which brings me back to my Pesach cleaning this year. We’ve got a unique opportunity to engage in creative, Mishkan building work right now. We’re forced to consider what we have and use it thoughtfully, whether its toys in the cupboards or tins in the pantry. And as I clean the house it becomes abundantly clear that Malechet Machshevet isn’t just something to think about on Shabbat. Malechet Machshevet means acting with a purpose, being aware of what we are doing and not squandering resources. If it’s choosing to cook a certain meal because I have ingredients that are close to expiring, and I’m trying to hold out as long as possible before I have to make a trip to the store. Or maybe being more thoughtful about what garbage gets thrown out, and what can be repurposed or recycled into a game for the kids. I’m hopeful that the days of home-quarantine will provide an opportunity for us to develop our Malechet Machshevet muscle, and to God willing emerge on the other side with a greater appreciation of what we have, and a more developed ability to use our resources, be it those in our homes or the natural world, in a more thoughtful, creative and ultimately responsible way.

Learn more about Hakhel – the first-of-its-kind Jewish Intentional Communities Incubator

The post Vayakhel-Pekudei: Preparing for Pesach during COVID-19 appeared first on Adamah.

By Joan Plisko, Community Sustainability Director, Pearlstone

Buy Ugly Produce

Did you know that 20% of all food never leaves the farm? While it tastes the same as all the other produce, if certain fruits and vegetables do not conform to consumer expectations of “beautiful,” it is hard for farmers to sell. Beauty is only skin deep so showcase the “least perfect” carrots, apples, and other fruits and veggies at your seder.

Discuss

Where does the food on this table come from? How did it get to the table? Who grew it? Is our meal more similar or dissimilar to the Jews leaving Egypt? In what way?

Host a Plastic Free Seder

Forget the single use plastic plates and utensils. Use or invest in reusable plates. Whether made of glass, bamboo, or another long-lasting material, purchase service ware for the long run.

Discuss

If our stuff was built to last and we rarely threw anything away, how would our world look? If you had to leave your home on a moment’s notice, like the Jews fleeing Egypt, what would you bring with you?

Grow Your Own Karpas

You can grow your own micro sprouts in three to seven days to use as Karpas. Sprouts are at their best when they’re still relatively small and just starting to turn green. Some examples are alfalfa, broccoli seeds, red clover seeds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and chia seeds.

Discuss

What would it look like if we grew more of our own food? Did you know that one in eight Americans are food insecure? How can you help feed all who are hungry?

Give Earth Friendly Afikomen Gifts

Ditch the plastic toys and games that often break or end up in the landfill after two months. Provide gifts that encourage children to spend time in nature. Gifts may be herbs, plants, or seeds or fun books about trees, birds or animals.

Discuss

Being in nature is good for our health. When we unplug and spend time in green spaces, we activate all of our senses. How were the Jewish people leaving Egypt in tune with the natural world around them? How can you become more connected to the natural world?

Integrate the Plagues of Climate Change

We are seeing the effects of climate change and they seem awfully similar to some of the plagues described in the Haggadah. For example, global temperatures are on the rise, the seas are rising, glaciers are retreating and droughts and heat waves are increasing. With these changes, we are experiencing:

• More air pollution Increase in allergens
• More wildfires and smoke Increase in diseases carried by fleas, ticks, and mosquitoes
• High levels of anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder
• Heavy rainfall, flooding, and droughts
• Extreme temperature changes

Discuss

What organizations can you connect with to practice Tikkun Olam (repair the world) to alleviate environmental problems? Does your synagogue or community include environmental issues in their social justice work? Are you a member of the Sustainability Coalition?

The post Journey to a More Sustainable Passover appeared first on Adamah.

Dear All,

The coronavirus is spreading, and it will get worse before it gets better.
Batten down the hatches, wash your hands, follow public safety advice, be considerate to others – and don’t freak out.
And the aftermath of the Israeli elections and the ongoing US elections – same advice…

But as the velocity of travel, literally, starts to slow, I want to argue that we – you, me, all of us – do a cleanse in the next few weeks.
And I get this idea from thinking carefully about the deep lessons from the Jewish calendar right now:

First: Purim isn’t an isolated holiday. It comes to help us get ready for Pesach, existentially as well as physically. Purim is “the world turned upside down.” No mention of G!d in the story. Getting drunk. Cross-dressing. Purim comes to shake us out of false certainties. It comes to question the components of our identity, the relationship between inner and outer, the tension between who we are and what we have.

And Purim does this because it kicks off an eleven week period from Purim to Shavuot. Seder night is the fulcrum of the whole period. And seder night is the night that we ourselves go free; the night that we leave the narrow places. We leave the ways that we’re enslaved by the world, and the ways that we self-enslave ourselves.

That’s why we have Purim.
To remind us that the day after Purim – in this case next Tuesday night, the 10th of March – is time to start getting rid of our chametz.

And getting rid of our chametz means, in a different sort of language, doing a cleanse.
I sometimes do one at this time of year, and haven’t properly for a few years. And now the coronavirus – and the fact that I had to cancel a trip to Israel next week – has come to really help me get me back on track. So I’m excited, truly, to start a cleanse next week. Here are some of the things that I will do – and I invite you to join me in this. (I’ll do some, but not necessarily all. Feel free to choose your own adventure.)

• Cut out caffeine.
• Cut out alcohol.
• Cut out added or processed sugars.
• Cut out dairy and cut out industrial meat. [The latter, for sure, you should do year-round; if you try it for a month you’ll certainly feel better.]
• Cut out white flour.
• Eat way more greens.

I know that, for me, my body craves sugars (including alcohol) and that caffeine zooms my energy and then spikes it. When in the past I’ve done a cleanse like this I always – always, without exception – feel better after a couple of weeks. I feel lighter, clearer, more focused. Less addicted in my eating. Calmer. I think probably kinder as well.

So I really encourage you to do some or all of this.
Don’t do it as self-abnegation.
Don’t do it as punishment.
Don’t do it to deprive yourself.
Do it as a gift to yourself, and for that matter to people who care about you. 
It’s pretty striking that we don’t get addicted to spinach or broccoli – I’ve never heard of that. But sugar and carbs and caffeine and alcohol – those are addictions. They do absolutely stop us from being truly free, from being our best selves. So that’s the first thing.

And then the physical analog as well. As we clean out our bodies – and our refrigerators and our pantries – declutter your home or office as well. Just get rid of stuff. Give it away. Throw it away. Recycle it.
We have too much stuff, and it stops us from being truly free. 
(And – again – if you’re an ascetic, or someone who has suffered from an eating disorder, or for that matter someone who knows yourself to be pulled in that direction, then ignore this advice.)
But for most of us: (1) we do have too much stuff; (2) it does connect at some level to our self-identity – which is why getting rid of stuff is hard, and why Purim especially comes to help us loosen up around this; and (3) it’s clearer now than at any moment in Jewish history that we not only have too much stuff as individuals; as a society we’re overconsuming the world. We’re collectively being made sick by our addiction to stuff. 
So – get rid of stuff. It’s better for you; your home will feel calmer; and it’s better for the world.

And that leads me to my third and last point:

Make sure that your cleanse isn’t just about you. 
We live in a narcissistic and selfish society. The moral example of some of our political and cultural leaders is making things worse and not better. That’s why it is vital that, in tandem with cleansing our bodies and cleaning up our homes, we also strive to bring goodness and kindness into the world.

So as you’re doing your own cleanse, think about doing some or all of these things, too:

• Give more money to someone on the street. I know. Perhaps a not-obvious place to start. But anyone you walk past who’s on the street has less than you do. If you can spend a bit less money on luxury food, or on another pair of sneakers, or dinner out, then you can give $5 or $10 or $20 to someone who’s on the street. It won’t make a difference in your life, and it may mean that someone else gets to eat a meal they wouldn’t otherwise eat.
  I’d add: it’s not accidental that one of the mitzvot of Purim is matanot la’evyonim, giving gifts to the poor. Taking steps towards becoming more free, towards becoming a version of our best selves, begins by reaching out – literally, individually – to someone who has less than I do;
• Commit in advance to having some part of your cleanse continue post-Pesach. You’ll figure out these next four weeks what that might be. Maybe, having tried it, you’ll cut out industrial meat and dairy for good. Maybe you’ll decide not to buy more clothes till Rosh Hashanah. But start the cleanse knowing that (1) it is time delimited – it’s just nowish until Pesach, but that (2) we really do want to be free; we really do want to be better people. The world actually needs us to eat more healthily and to live more lightly;
• Commit to supporting Hazon. Please give a gift to Hazon, if you haven’t yet given us a 2020 gift. The work we’re doing is important. It has never been more important. We have to fund the work we’re doing and we have to build reserves. If you believe that the Jewish community needs to respond to the climate crisis; if you believe that we ought to be strengthening Jewish life in the process;  if you believe that we should be renewing Jewish wisdom in light of the world’s current challenges – then please become a stakeholder in Hazon. We genuinely need your support. I hope that this too will be an expression of being your best self – a way that, I hope, you feel proud to be a stakeholder in the larger enterprise of what we’re trying to do;
• And finally – commit to wider change. This is the 50th anniversary of Earth Day – April 22nd. Pencil that morning in your calendar if you’re in the NY area. We have something big we’re going to announce and you’re invited to join us.
  And note – if you’ve been away, on some other planet – that this is an election year. Don’t just watch CNN or your internet feed. Please give money to candidates who will work for a more sustainable world for all. Please give time if you can. If you’re leading a Jewish institution – plan to invite candidates to come and talk about the climate crisis, locally and nationally, at your institution this fall. It will make a difference.

I end with this thought, back on the coronavirus – a thought which is at once anodyne and also a deep truth.
When our bodies get sick, they’re telling us something. They’re saying we might need to slow down a little, our immune system is weakened, we’ve been over-doing it, we caught a bug, we’re not sleeping well, we’ve been traveling too much, we’re not eating healthily, we’re not happy with part of our life.
We know that the human body is a miracle, and that when – if we can – we sleep and eat and exercise and spend time with people we love, and switch off our electronica – that, slowly, we recharge. We feel better.

And the same can be true for a whole society, a whole interconnected planet earth, both in sickness and in health.

So now: let’s understand COVID-19  as a manifestation of too many flights, too much intensity, too much unhealthiness. Let’s remember how wise and how ancient Jewish tradition is. Let’s pay attention to the gift of Purim, the gift of Pesach, the gift of the Jewish calendar.

And let’s, individually and collectively, slow down, eat more healthily, consume less stuff, act more kindly to others — and thus at least start to create a better world for all.

Shabbat shalom, tzom kal, Purim sameach,

Nigel

The post Now’s the time to plan a cleanse! appeared first on Adamah.

The Hebrew Month of Adar, beginning this year on February 26, has great weight and depth, much more so if one is aware and takes advantage of its powerful vertical energy, Source/God energy. There is a circularity to entering this energy. Each year we step in to start another year long circular journey around its vertical energy, potentially moving us toward greater wisdom. With each circle around Adar we have the opportunity to go deeper within the self to draw ever closer to our God-self.

At the same time, Adar invites us to do a review of the past year’s circle which is a review of honor: did we do our work in going deeper, in accessing more wisdom. Are we more able to give answers based in wisdom. Are we living with more responsibility for our growing wisdom, are we bringing it forward in our communication with others. We are able to look back upon each of the looping circles for each year of our lives that we circle Adar, and see what wisdom we have gained. Most often, that wisdom is gained through pain, trauma, sorrow. We can ask ourselves, what did we endure, what did we suffer that year and how did it shape us?

If we consciously connect to the energy of this circle throughout the year, we increase more readily in wisdom, in drawing closer to our core, our Source-self. That is perhaps the sense underlying the sages’ comment that “one who enters Adar increases in joy”¹, because an increase in wisdom will increase joy.

An increase in wisdom, being in greater conscious connection with our Source-self, will finally allow us to “Serve God in Joy” (Ps. 100:2). Many of us have trouble accepting this dictate, in part because we feel like we’re giving up control to an outside agency. And we resist in part because sometimes that service is highly challenging, so we may think this can’t be how I am supposed to serve. But when we are aware of who we are, of what specific path we have chosen to serve², then we are more able to fulfill this work in joy even if the path is difficult or painful. It is such a reassuring feeling to know that the mountain we choose to climb is actually our work in this world. And, even better, the wiser we grow, the more aware of who we are, we are more often able to receive our lessons in joy instead of pain.

How does one consciously embark upon this circular path of increasing wisdom? It starts by putting one’s ego aside, becoming silent and listening. Simple but very difficult for us humans, where ego most often runs the show. In a rather startling commentary, Rebbe Mordecai Yosef Leiner³ discusses why, for each step in building the Mishkan – the Tabernacle, or Sanctuary – it is written that it was done “just as God commanded”. But after the Mishkan was built, there was no such statement about the building of the courtyard surrounding the Mishkan.⁴ Leiner explains that after the Mishkan was completed, everything changed. Moshe could no longer hear clearly; God’s word was no longer as distinct and unmistakable.⁵

What had happened? The building of the Mishkan is a metaphor for the building of wisdom, the vertical energy, inside the self. When the meaning became confused, and Moshe, the rabbis, the people looked to the structure itself as holding the power, with the understanding that the power was outside of themselves, the power to connect with the vertical energy of Source was diminished. This is the understanding that each person was, and is, to become the Mishkan, each to build themself into a vessel for the vertical energy, for the divine flow. We are to embody the 13 Attributes of God.⁶

The Hasidic sage R. Menachem Nahum Twersky explained that to be in the divine flow and to receive wisdom we must become like a wilderness. To become like a wilderness, “one must beseech the Holy One of Blessing that ‘my spirit become like dust to all.’ ”⁷ This is the notion of ridding oneself of ego, to be able to sit in silence and listen to the timeless wisdom of the vertical energy, to the God-self.

The holiday of Purim which falls within Adar features a man who had mastered making himself into such a wilderness, in order to help save the Jewish people. The Book of Esther recounts the story of how Mordecai and Esther, two Jews, are able to reverse a decree of King Ahasuerus to kill all of the Jews in the land. It is often commented that although God is not mentioned in this Biblical book of Esther, the plot seems quite dependent on extreme coincidences, (one might say miracles). Why do we not hear about God in this book? Because this story is the example par excellence of one who was able to bring in the voice of God by being in the silence, without ego.

The story tells us that Esther, who had become the Queen without divulging her Jewish identity, is coached by Mordecai to go, unbidden, to the King to beseech him to change the decree. Such an unbidden appearance was forbidden and usually resulted in death, so Esther resisted. Mordecai proceeds to tell her that if she does not do this, someone else will save the Jews, while she and all in her father’s house will die. And, moreover “who knows, perhaps you have attained to royal position for just such a crisis.” (Esther, 4:14). Mordecai does not glorify himself by saying that he is engaging in prophesy, although clearly he is. And he does not claim the certainty of a prophet, but rather frames his wisdom with a humble “who knows” – that perhaps this is why she became queen, to serve in this way. And, of course, all is well for the Jews in the end of the story, as a result of Mordecai’s prophesy and Esther’s actions.

Mordecai exemplifies the non-egoic position, the strength that comes from relying on the wisdom of the vertical energy pouring through. He became like a wilderness, open to the Torah he needed in the moment. And so we were saved, in that story. There is an uphill road facing all of us this year on many fronts. If we learn from the story of Purim, if we draw down upon the energy of Adar, we can be partners in saving ourselves. I bless us all with the courage to review our past circles, and to commit to going forward on a conscious circle around Adar this next year. Be open to wisdom and connection with the well of Source within. May we all live in joy!

Rabbi Ora Weiss is a member of the Hazon Rabbinical Council.

Notes

¹ B. Taanit 29a

² Each person has their own specific journey, specific work and tikkun (healing)  to do in the world, that no one else can do.  The Slonimer Rebbe, in Netivot Shalom, commentary on Lekh Lekha. 

³  Mei Hashiloach, on Parshat Pekudei.

⁴ With each step of constructing the Mishkan, Torah says that “Just as God commanded, it was built”. (E.g. Exodus 39:5,7,21,26,29,32,42; Ex. 40:16,19, 21, 26,32.) But after the Mishkan was built, there was no such statement following completion of the courtyard enclosing the Mishkan, although this, too had been commanded. (Ex. 27:9-18; Ex. 40:33).

⁵ Mei Hashiloach, Commentary on Parshat Pekudei (Ex. 40:33).

⁶ R’ Menachem Nahum of Chernobyl,  comments on God saying “Have them build me a sanctuary, and I will dwell within them” (Ex. 25:8).  “To the extent that one clothes oneself in the Thirteen Attributes of God (Ex. 34:6-7) one is able to draw down the divine flow into oneself, as it is written (Ex. 25:8), ‘and I will dwell within them.’ “ In other words, make yourself into a Mishkan – a sanctuary by being that love that is God.  Meor Anayim, Rosh HaShanah.

⁷ Meor Anayim, Commentary on Parshat Yitro.  See also B. Eruvin 54a, “One who makes themselves like a wilderness, Torah is given to them as a gift.”

The post Engage With the Powerful Energy of Adar: Your Chance for Joy appeared first on Adamah.