Faith at the Summit: Hope and the Bishop of Canterbury

Two more COP15 videos from Odyssey Networks: Day’s 5 and 6 in Copenhagen. Enjoy! (If you can’t see a video player on your screen, click on the image below. Otherwise, visit Odyssey Networks’ videos page.

From Day 6, “The Bishop of Canterbury

and Day 5’s “Finding Hope”:

Day Three of Faith at the Summit: At the Klimaforum

Hi Everyone,

The following is the third in the video series Odyssey Networks has released on the Faith at the Summit conference, paralleling COP15 in Copenhagen. We’ll continue to post their videos as the conference continues to progress. Enjoy, and keep praying for some serious action on climate change!

(If you can’t see the video from this page, click on the image below).

Video: Faith at the Summit – Advice for President Obama

JCI’s Dr. Michael Kagan and other faith leaders offer spiritual advice to President Obama, who will be joining COP15 in Copenhagen- Day 2 at the conference, by Odyssey Networks.

Sisters Bring Brothers Together in Copenhagen: Dr. Kagan joins Monks, Nuns, Swamis, Reverends, Ministers, Sheikhs and Rabbis at COP15

By Dr. Michael Kagan, co-founder of Jewish Climate Initiative

Dear Friends,

I am in Copenhagen as a representative of Judaism at a satellite conference taking place around the COP15.  The conference is organized by the Global Peace Initiative of Women.  My first reaction when initially invited was that I am of the wrong gender but I was reassured that it is only organized by women but it is a unisex event.  So here I am with am amazing group of spiritual practitioners from religions and countries from around the world. I feel truly blessed to be here.

The entire town has been transformed into a stage for this world-shaping, critical gathering of world leaders.  Everywhere there are posters welcoming the arrival of the 54,000 people that have arrived specially for this gathering.  The most powerful posters were at the airport – the entire corridor from passport control to baggage was lined with images of the world’s political leaders looking 15 years older and the caption “Why didn’t I do more when I had the opportunity?”

Today’s first session of our group that numbers about 60 people, was an introduction and then a discussion about why we are here and what we want to get out of this week’s event.  My fellow participants are monk and nuns and swamis and reverends and ministers and sheikhs and rabbis (two of us) with a particular interest and practice in meditation and the quest for oneness.

I want to relate an insight that I had concerning the core of the problem that we are facing.  It is directly related to the Ya’acov and Esav and which I shared in answer to the question of what has gone wrong.

If Esav represents earth energies (adom – redness, hunter, know of nature, masculine) then Ya’acov represents heaven or spirit (dweller in tents, feminine, alchemy, seeker of truth).  The brothers are not talking to each other, in fact they are at war with each other, they are distant from each other, they cannot communication with each other. This is the broken ladder, the ladder that reaches from earth to heaven.  This brokenness is a cause of the lack of knowledge of how to properly walk this earth.  There is a disconnect between the way of the spirit – the Shechinah – and the way we utilize the resources of the earth.  Israel is the ladder. Israel are the ones that struggle in this quest, Israel are the ones that try to be straight with the Divine, Israel are the ones that are to raise up the songs of creation to the Creator. We are all potentially Israel. We must fix the ladder and do our job.  The time is short and the work is great and the master is demanding.

In Peace

Michael

Sounds from Windsor

A BBC report on some of the events earlier this month that took place at the celebration of religions and conservation awareness.  It includes an exclusive interview with Dr. Michael Kagan, co-founder of the Jewish Climate Initiative.”

To Listen to the BBC Report, Click Here

And some photos from the event:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Many Heavens, One Earth Conference, Windsor Castle, November 2009.

By Rabbi Yedidya Sinclair

Last week’s conference on world religions and climate change sponsored by the UN and ARC was an extraordinary event. You can read about it here, here and here. The gathering together of religious leaders and environmental heroes was unprecedented. So was the strong acknowledgement of the world’s religions’ critical role in confronting climate change, from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon.

(And so, for that matter, was my sitting next to his wife at dinner last Monday night and giving her a virtual tour of Israel on the cover of a box of Elite chocolates from the Ben Gurion airport gift shop. But that’s a story for another blog.)

One of my favorite moments came when I was nearly stoned by the organizers (in a very polite and English way) for reckless and irresponsible davening.  They had asked me in advance to give a short prayer at the end of one of the sessions. I had thought hard about what to offer. I don’t believe in making up new-fangled prayers, but wanted to do something that would resonate across the plethora of spiritual traditions present.

Eventually I remembered the talk that R. Dov Berkowitz gave at the Vayehi Or conference in Jerusalem back in April. R. Dov argued that for 3000 years and more, the Land of Israel has stood poised between the desert and the availability of water. With no great river running through the land we have no choice but to turn to Divine Providence for rainfall, fertility and blessing. In 2009, with encroaching drought and desertification, many other countries are in this position (One of the African delegates at Windsor pointed out that 10 month old babies in his country have never seen rain.) Today the whole world is the Holy Land. Except perhaps for England…

So I got up at the Windsor conference, quoted R. Berkowitz’s idea in his name and announced my intention therefore to read the traditional Jewish prayer for rain said on Shemini Atzeret, with kavvanah not just for the Land of Israel but for the whole Earth. The Conference chair clutched his head in alarm. For this was moments before we were due to process through the streets of Windsor to the Castle, in our ceremonial religious gladrags behind banners and a marching band. It had poured with rain all night but now the sun was peeping through heavy grey clouds. And here was I, literally asking God to rain on the parade.

Undeterred, I read the simple but powerful words: “

For you are God who makes the wind to blow and the rain to fall.
For a blessing, not for a curse.
For life and not for death.
For plenty and not for scarcity.

Then I sang the Vorker niggun that accompanies the prayer in many Israeli shuls and the other Jews present joined in. Delegates from drought-wracked Asian and African countries said they joined in silently with the prayer.  Before concluding, I added “and let’s hope it stays fine here for another half an hour.”

We trooped out into the street, resplendent in our sky blue caftans and saris, saffron and orange turbans, austere black canonicals and burgundy tunics. The Jewish Renewal crew did us proud, draped in their rainbow-colored  tallitot. The press snapped happily, tourists gawped with delight and killjoy clouds gathered menacingly overhead.  Over the moat and drawbridge, through the hulking Norman portcullis of Windsor Castle beneath the Disneyesque towers and turrets (no fairy tale, I’m sure, for would-be invaders 900 years ago) and in through the massive oak doors of the State Apartments.

Scarcely was the last robe and mitre safely inside when it began to rain. This ensured me a certain Honi Ha’ma’agel-like fame for the rest of the conference. The UK head of the World Wildlife Fund admonished me that I really should have asked for 45 minutes leeway, just to be on the safe side.

Of course, it doesn’t take a miracle for rain to fall on England in November. But it does seem like a miracle that such a group came together to pray, act and speak out for wise and responsible steps to avert climate change and ecological crisis. It seems like a miracle that a thoroughly secular outfit like the UN recognized their indispensable role. It seems like a miracle that just now, when the world’s need is greatest, religions are waking up as one to their ancient teachings on conserving the Earth and their this-moment imperative to act on them. Let us join in the miracle and pray and act together.

Sign the Pledge: www,JewishClimateCampaign.org

Blog Action Day and the Jewish Climate Change Campaign

Shalom Climate of Change Readers,

In honor of this past week’s Blog Action Day, dedicated to the fight against climate change, we’d like to report to you on the Seven Year Jewish Climate Campaign.

We first mentioned the campaign following JCI’s Vayehi Or event in April. Since then and with help and ideas from many of you and fellow Jewish environmentalists and leaders from Israel and abroad, we have developed The Plan and are now gearing up to bring the campaign to the global Jewish community. The official launch date is this coming Monday, the 18th of October, in honor of Climate Healing Shabbat, November’s gathering at Windsor Castle, and the upcoming Copenhagen Conference in December.

The aim of the Jewish Climate Change Campaign is to engage the entire Jewish community towards taking action on climate change. In doing so we will be joining a global movement of 12 world faiths, each launching plans of their own. We invite you to head to http://JewishClimateCampaign.org/, to sign the pledge and join the campaign, and to offer any further suggestions as to the content of the plan and its recommendations.

The core of the campaign is as follows:

• Making it clear that Jewish people care strongly about these issues. We will be presenting the campaign and the number of signatories at Windsor Castle, to the Secretary General of the United Nations, the British royal family and religious and environmental leaders from around the world;
• Making changes in our own lives – and inviting our friends to do likewise.  The pledge commits you to learn, to speak-up, and to change at least one of your actions for good. It could be to eat more local food, or to use your bike or public transportation more, or insulate your home, or get a more fuel efficient car – but we hope you’ll make your own changes now and in 2010;
• Creating a long-term process for serious change in Jewish institutions. We’re calling on every Jewish institution – school, synagogue, JCC, camp – to set up a Green Team, and start working on a multi-year plan to green itself. It’s good for the world, good for the institution and good for the Jews. If you’re the head of a Jewish institution, we invite you formally to have your organization become an organizational partner -  http://jewishclimatecampaign.org/joinUs.php – and if you know someone who heads a Jewish institution, please send this to them and invite them to sign as an individual, and have their institution become a Partner.
• Introducing the Jewish world to a wide range of resources on the interface between Judaism, Climate Change and Sustainability. The website contains lots of information – and links to other Jewish environmental organizations that have further resources.

We look forward to continuing to work together in rising, as a People, to the challenge of climate change.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Sinclair, Yannai and the JCI/Climate of Change Team

To sign the pledge and pass it on to your friends: http://jewishclimatecampaign.org/pledge.php
If you have any questions, email climate@hazon.org.
If you’re the head of a Jewish organization – or know someone who is – please ask them to become an Organizational Partner. Info at http://jewishclimatecampaign.org/joinUs.php

Sign the Pledge: www.JewishClimateCampaign.org

Continental Airlines Goes Green. Or not. Or… Yes?

By Yannai Kranzler

How would you respond to sitting on an airplane, digging into the seat pocket in front of you, to discover that your complementary in-flight magazine was dedicated to caring for the environment?

Would you be thankful? Hopeful? Would you laugh? Would you sigh and say, “Well, I’m the one paying them to emit Carbon Dioxide- it’s very courteous of them to make an effort?” Or would you say, “This is, like, over-the-top obnoxious- is it possible to get more cynical than an airliner claiming to be a part of “The Eco-Movement?”

I ask because I found myself in this situation a few weeks ago, on my Continental flight from Pittsburgh to New York. Continental, it seems, has gone green, titling the September issue of Continental Magazine “True Green,” dedicating it to “People, Places and Products Driving the Eco-Movement,” including in it many references to Continental’s environmental accomplishments. I didn’t quite know how to react to this.

Now I didn’t say that I don’t believe Larry Kellner, Chairman and CEO of Continental Airlines when he lists the company’s “Commitment to environmental responsibility” as a reason to fly Continental, but… well would you believe him?

Here’s the fun thing: Even if we don’t believe him, even if we think the whole thing completely outrageous, there’s something subtle, but important going on:

If I learned one thing in Community Based Social Marketing class, it’s that the most assured way for people to change their attitudes is for them to change their behavior, even just a little bit, and to publicly commit to sustaining those changes. Whether Continental is wholeheartedly pursuing green measures for the betterment of the world or playing lip service to the trendiness of being green, the fact that they’ve publicly committed themselves to the cause will likely impact their decisions in the future.

In Jewish tradition, we believe that Acharei Hapeulot, Nimshechot Halevavot, that “Our hearts follow our actions.” If I’m not feeling close to my community, my tradition tells me to go out and do something for the community. If I don’t care for the poor, I’m to give to the poor. We’re even commanded to help our enemies with the heavy loads they carry on their backs.

Our whole religious system, in fact, is based on action, or Halakhot. I’m not asked to fervently believe until I taste being immersed in action. As CBSM contends, I’m likely to feel connected to my community, compassionate on the poor, and to favor reconciliation with foes, when I pursue actions that connect me with them. Could there be a better way to make peace than to help my enemy carry his load?

Ultimately, it won’t make a difference if Mr. Kellner is an environmentalist stuck in the wrong business or a good businessman in a world of environmentalists. Save actually going green, which in Mr. Kellner’s business might mean finding another job, publicly committing to the environment is probably the greenest thing he could have done.

All we need to do is to hold him to his commitment.

In all fairness to Continental, it seems they have made real efforts to maximize their fleets’ fuel economy, and now run planes that are 35% more fuel efficient than the ones they used in 1997. For more on Continental’s environmental policy, see http://www.continental.com/web/en-US/content/company/globalcitizenship/environment.aspx

Sign the Pledge: www.JewishClimateCampaign.org

Praying for Rain: Who Affects the Weather, God or Us?

By Rabbi Julian Sinclair

Sukkot has a special connection to rain. The Talmud (Rosh Hoshanah 16a) says that on Sukkot, we are judged for the rainfall we will receive in the coming year. On Shemini Atzeret, the final day of the holiday, we begin to say Mashiv Ha’Ruach u’morid Hagashem, in the Amidah prayer, invoking God as the One who brings rainfall, at the start of the wet season in the Land of Israel.

It can seem strange to be saying these words outside Israel, in climates where we are not so aware of the shift into a rainy season. In many regions it rains year round. Why do we connect ourselves to the climate rhythms of the Land of Israel thousands of miles away?

There are many places in the world today that do not have the luxury of being able to debate whether climate change is a mere theory or a proven fact. For Inuit Eskimos, subsistence farmers in Mali, or peasants in the Himalayas, climate change is not a scientific hypothesis but their everyday lived experience. They see their habitats disappearing, experience longer and more severe droughts and see with their own eyes how much the glaciers have receded.

To these groups we should now add inhabitants of the Land of Israel. In Israel people have always been acutely aware of rainfall. It is a necessity of life. Over each of the past five years rainfall in Israel has been significantly below average. In the past two years it was 30-35% below average, resulting in a severe and worsening water crisis. It is becoming clear that this is not a blip but a trend. It is a trend in line with climate change scientific predictions for the Middle East.

Sukkot is a holiday of trust in the seasons. We live outside in booths, in celebration of the fall harvest and in touch with the beauty of the natural world. The sukkah is a temporary dwelling, exposed to the elements. It is fragile—at any moment the natural world could turn on us and knock our it down. But this is also a source of joy. The very fragility of the Sukkah causes us to turn to God in gratitude for the embracing protection of the regular, natural order of things.

It is on Sukkot, as we leave our homes and put our trust the weather, that we are likely to see the effects of climate change around us. Are there plants growing in your neighborhood that you have never seen before? Did you get more rain than you expected, or none at all?  When you compliment the unseasonably warm weather, does it click in the back of your mind that perhaps it should have started to turn to fall now?

For most of our lives we are not sufficiently tuned in to our surroundings to notice these subtle changes.  Our solid suburban homes shield us from much awareness of the nuances of nature.  But on Sukkot, we may be able to notice the signs that are pointing to a changing planet and arouse ourselves to play our role in addressing the problem. ((with thanks to Rachel Kahn Troster for her formulation of this thought.)

In America the most of the urban and suburban Jewish community are not yet feeling the effects of climate change. Our brothers and sisters in Israel probably are. When we say Mashiv Haruach, we align our existence with their’s. We acknowledge the critical importance of rain for life there. We sensitize ourselves to the life-threatening consequences of upsetting the planet’s delicate climate balance. And we may be aroused to joy, love and action to help protect this fragile miracle.

Hag Sameakh!

Sign the Pledge: The Jewish Climate Campaign

A Couple of Thoughts for Yom Kippur

By Rabbi Julian Sinclair

The Power of One

On Yom Kippur we examine our actions.  The scrupulous review of our deeds that the day calls for teaches us that everything we do, however small it may seem matters a great deal, often far more than we can even imagine.

Maimonides writes in The Laws of Teshuvah:

Therefore a person should see himself throughout the year as if his life is half good and half bad and likewise see the whole world equally poised in the same way.  One bad deed can tip himself and the whole world towards destruction. One good deed can tip himself and the whole world towards salvation….therefore all Jews have the custom of doing as much Tzdakah and as many Mitzvot as possible between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.”
Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Teshuvah 3:4.

Global climate change is caused by billions of everyday actions of hundred of millions of people. It is so tempting to say, “what difference will it make if I change my lightbulbs/drive a Prius/….I’m only an infinitesimal part of the problem.  My actions won’t make a difference.”

Billions of people telling themselves this are tipping the world towards destruction.  The power of Teshuvah is the power of one; the knowledge that each of our lives and our deeds matter and can have incalculable significance.

Sir John Houghton, one of the world’s leading climate scientists put it very beautifully when I asked him why individuals should feel that their puny actions can  make a difference to the climate:

First Sir John quoted Edmund Burke, the British Enlightenment thinker who declared: “No man ever made a greater error than he who did nothing because he could only do a little.” Then after a moment’s reflection he added,

“But I think there’s a deeper answer than Burke’s. You know, I live overlooking the estuary of the river Dovey. Once a year, the sky above my house becomes a staging post for migrating starling. They create the most spectacular formations, tens of thousands of them, banking ,wheeling, whirling, swirling around a vortex , and separating and regathering while replicating the same order; I don’t think anyone really understands how they do it; certainly not the starlings themselves, yet out of the actions of all of those many individual birds come coherent and beautiful patterns of organization. We’re like that too, though mostly we don’t realize it; we view our acts and choice as individuals as if we lived in a vacuum, we don’t understand how we are participating in much larger social organisms.”

Yom Kippur is the time to make a commitment to small but real changes. When each of us decides that we are going to make changes and walk more gently on the planet –  we start to tip the world in the direction of salvation.

Jonah and Loving a Tree

At Minchah on Yom Kippur we read the book of Jonah. It marks a shift in the day from a mood of solemnity towards mercy and also from Jewish particularism towards universalism.

God tells Jonah that He will bring destruction on the city of Nineveh and commands Jonah to prophesy to Nineveh to change its ways. Jonah refuses to accept the task and flees from God.  God catches up with him, Jonah prophesies to Nineveh and the city repents and is saved. At the end of the book Jonah is still resentful. God sends him a Kikayon tree and Jonah gratefully enjoys its shade. The tree dies and Jonah is very aggrieved.  To which God says:

You cared about the plant, which you did not work for and which you did not grow; and should not I care about Nineveh, that great city…” Jonah 4: 10-11.

Many of us switch off and close down when we hear prophecies of impending climate change destruction. They may be scientifically well-grounded, but apocalypticism can be paralyzing. Like Jonah, we turn away and try not to listen.  It is often a tree that we love, a landscape, a beautiful butterfly which is endangered that awaken in us an inkling of how much God loves creation and arouse us too to have compassion for the world.  The inspiration we need to make the changes we must, need not come not from fear but can well up from love and gratitude.

gmar hatimah tovah.
Sign the pledge: www.JewishClimateCampaign.org