Rabbi ari lev: Everything is waiting for us
Rosh Hashanah Day 1 5778
September 20, 2017
In late August, Hurricane Harvey wreaked havoc in Texas, Louisiana, Belize and Honduras. At the same time, an epic rainstorm in Sierra Leone caused unprecedented mudslides and an entire mountainside came down in Regent, on the outskirts of Freetown and killed at least 500 people. A week later, Hurricane Irma devastated parts of Florida and the Caribbean. Just this week, a 7.1 magnitude earthquake killed hundreds in Mexico. And just yesterday, I held my breath, awaiting the news of Hurricane Maria and its toll on Dominica and Puerto Rico.
The path of destruction of these storms is heartbreaking. Day after day, I have been sending prayers for safety and recovery all over the world. And I find myself returning to a Facebook post from one of my mentors, writer and activist Aurora Levins Morales, who herself is puertoriquena: "The eye of Irma is crossing Tortola, a place I love. Hitting Puerto Rico later today. This is not a natural disaster. This is reckless capitalist development, climate breakdown and colonialism that prioritizes profits over people. Predictions are that many areas of Puerto Rico will be without electricity for 4-5 MONTHS. This is not a natural disaster."
I clicked on her blog post where she continues: "Heavier than normal rainfall is one of the documented effects of global climate disruption, which overwhelming scientific evidence shows is being caused by human greed, mostly on the part of the rich countries of the global north...What keeps being hidden in plain view is that the rain itself is a crime, or at least the result of one."
There is a lesser known midrash that goes something like this:
Rabbi Eliezer taught: "The world was created on the twenty-fifth of Elul. This implies that the first person was created on Rosh Hashanah. In the first hour [of that day] the idea arose [in the Divine mind to create humankind]...in the ninth [hour Adam and Eve were] commanded [not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge], in the tenth [hour they] transgressed the commandment, in the eleventh [hour they were] judged, and in the twelfth pardoned by the blessed Holy One. The blessed Holy One said to Adam: “This will be a sign for your descendants. Just as you stood before me in judgment on this day and were pardoned, so too will they stand before me to be judged on this day and be pardoned.”[1]
There are two central myths associated with Rosh Hashanah. One is the creation of the world, often spun as the birthday of the world. This develops from the liturgy that declares, Hayom Harat Olam, Today the world is conceived. The other theme which comes directly from the early rabbinic writings is judgement. Rosh Hashanah is referred to as Yom HaDin, The Day of Judgement. We are taught that on the first day of the Hebrew month of Tishrei, God will judge each person.[2] We recite Unetane Tokef, declaring the Sacred Power of this Day and conjure the image of a shepherd numbering his flock. “On Rosh Hashanah it is written and on Yom Kippur it is sealed...מי יחיה ומי ימות. Who shall live and who shall die.” And we find ourselves declaring the awesomeness of a God we may or may not believe in, because in truth, our life is on the line. The theme of judgement, so integral to human psychology, is woven throughout the High Holiday machzor. It has stolen the stage so to say and certainly captivated our already anxious imaginations. And from this existential fear, grows the primary spiritual practice of these Days of Awe - Teshuva. The understanding that we humans are imperfect; that we have both the capacity and the longing to transform and heal; the understanding that Teshuva, Tefillah and Tzedakah - forgiveness, contemplation and righteous action - have cosmic impact.
So motivated by his own fear of death, Rabbi Eliezer was willing to re-write the myth of creation so that Rosh Hashanah could retain its focus as The Day of Judgement. By moving the creation of the world 5 days earlier and asserting that what was created on Rosh Hashanah was us human beings, this very long day of prayer and food can in fact focus on the themes of reward and punishment, on repairing the human/divine relationship.
What will it take to re-center creation in our spiritual lives?
We see the primacy of creation reflected throughout the book of psalms. Rabbi Art Green writes: “The celebration of creation, so central to the psalmist, calls out for revival in our day… the urgent need to transform human behavior in relation to the environment will be best supported by a religious life that returns to the Psalmists’ consciousness of our human place within (not above) the great symphony of creation.”[3]
Perhaps this is the real wisdom of Rabbi Eliezer? Perhaps the world was created on the 25th of Elul to underscore for us that the natural world precedes us human beings?
What we know about climate change is that it is not as value neutral as the word change makes it out to be. Scientists confirm rising seas, retreating glaciers, and extreme weather -- and all of their effects on human health and well-being, everything from more lung disease and vector-borne illnesses to injuries and deaths from extreme weather events. These changes are not part of the natural ebb and flow of creation. This is not natural phenomenon. It is the product of unjust global forces and it already does disproportionately cause poor people of color all over the world to suffer and die. And this is true in Philadelphia as well. Take one example, The Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES) fossil fuel refinery in South Philadelphia. It is the largest refinery on the East Coast and one of the oldest in the world. The refinery is responsible for 72% of the toxic air emissions in Philadelphia. If we continue to burn fossil fuels, 10% of Philadelphia’s population, over 150,000 people, will be displaced by sea level rise.
We also know that climate change is so overwhelming an issue, it can be hard to talk about. Research shows that seven in 10 Americans rarely or never discuss climate disruption with family and friends. Even as the struggle to prevent the Keystone Pipeline continues, even in the wake of the Water Protectors at Standing Rock, even with a local campaign for Green Jobs in North Philly, most of us, myself included, don’t know where to begin.
So too with Teshuva.
The call to transform ourselves, to heal and forgive, is so much bigger than our consciousness can hold.
This is why on the Shabbat leading up to Rosh Hashanah, the Torah gives us some extraordinarily direct and clear advice on how to do Teshuva, how to effect our own transformation:
“Because this instruction to do Teshuva is not beyond what you can understand, nor beyond your reach.
לו בשמים היא, It is not in heaven, so you can’t say:
‘Who can go up to the heavens and bring it to us and cause us to hear it so that we can do it?’
And it is not beyond the sea, so you can’t say:
‘Who can go across the sea and bring it to us and cause us to hear it so that we and do it?
No, Teshuva is very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart, and you can do it.”[4]
This year I am suggesting, that we add the earth to our Teshuva list.
These recent hurricanes have made me feel a kind of urgent responsibility - a need to be responsive. For some time I have been concerned but not alarmed. Composting and reusing my plastic bulk bags. Participating in civil disobedience against local and national pipelines, but not fully orienting my life around climate change. Until this Hurricane season. Until Aurora Levins Morales so bluntly said it: “These are not natural disasters...the rain itself is a crime, or at least the result of one.” They have caused me to ask: Where have we missed the mark? How might we include environmental justice in our internal accounting of our souls this High Holidays? And how might we cultivate an ecological consciousness that sustains us spiritually and quite literally?
I have come to understand that all our righteous struggles are ecological struggles, and need to be framed that way. In fact we all need to become eco-activists, not by putting down other struggles, but by connecting them. I have brainstormed a long list of possible responses, ranging from personal actions to local campaigns. But what feels much more urgent to me is that we as a community must begin the spiritual work of re-centering creation in our lives.
In the words of David Whyte in his poem “Everything is Waiting for You”:
Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice...
Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the
Conversation…
All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.”
While years of Jewish mythic exile have created vast tomes of insightful teachings, we have lost our intimate connection to land and ecology. We have lost, what I am calling, indigenous consciousness: the core understanding that everything is connected. So that when we lie down and when we rise up, when we go on our way - we are intimately aware that everything is alive and everything is connected; that we are one part of a larger ecosystem. This is the vast oneness of all life. And it is precisely this consciousness that we need to integrate into all of our struggles for justice and into every aspect of life. Because extraction is the orientation of Exile.
In her forthcoming essay, Ecology is Everything, Levins Morales writes:
“It’s heartbreaking that there are so many human beings who cling to the sinking ship of infinite piracy, unable to imagine a society of reciprocity, respect and mutual care that would meet the needs of all, including them...But for those of us who are able to envision that society, it’s essential that we understand this: every struggle is an ecological struggle.”
Environmental justice is racial justice is economic justice. The 2014 U.S. National Climate Assessment, concluded what we already know -- that “certain people and communities are especially vulnerable, including children, the elderly, the sick, the poor, and communities of color.” What the writings of Aurora Levins Morales have made clear to me, is that capitalism and corporate greed are at the heart of our ecological crisis. Corporate greed is the Amalek of our time and it is coming for our must vulnerable. And Jewish tradition teaches, we are obligated to respond.
But how?
Perhaps Kol Tzedek Justice and Action launches a new project this year and we get involved in the EQAT/POWER campaign for green jobs with PECO. One that if successful will lift 1 in 5 families in Philly out of poverty.
Perhaps we start a solar power coop in West Philly.
Maybe we create environmental justice hevrutas; intentional partners with whom we can each set personal goals about how to make Teshuva with the earth.
Maybe we really make an effort as a community to use less paper goods and compost our food waste.
Maybe some of us decide, like some other KT members already have, to only take vacations by train.
However, before we habitually fall into fix-it mode, I invite us to feel in our bones that the desecration of the environment is itself a form of exile from Our Source. I invite us to find a way back to the energy of this summers Solar Eclipse, so that we can all stand in awe of the ineffable, indescribable experience of being wholly part of something so much larger than we can imagine. I invite us to make allies with the sky above and the ground beneath us, and delight in creation, in all its magic, beauty and power.
In these treasured words by the great Alice Walker:
"My first step from the old white man was trees. Then air. Then birds. Then other people. But one day when I was sitting quiet and feeling like a motherless child, which I was, it come to me: that feeling of being part of everything, not separate at all. I knew that if I cut a tree, my arm would bleed. And I laughed and I cried and I run all around the house…” Shug continues, “I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.”[5]
In truth, this hurricane season has deconstructed yet another false binary. The two myths about Rosh Hashanah -- creation and judgment -- are not in fact distinct myths. They are two perspective on one deeply woven truth. As we have seen in Mexico and Miami, Houston, Flint and Puerto Rico, life hangs in the balance of our relationship to the earth. Creation and judgement are not mutually exclusive. They are warp and the weft of existence.
In hebrew we refer to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur as Yamim Noraim, Days of Awe. But in truth, the root of the word Noraim or Norah, means both Fear and Awe. It is precisely on Rosh Hashanah, that we are called to transform our fear that the earth will swallow us alive into Awe for that which inspires and transforms all life. Awe motivates people to do things that enhance the greater good. Awe helps bind us together.[6]
Our rabbis teach that even before the world was created the Holy One of Blessing created teshuvah, for how could creation be possible if change was not already present. Before there was day or night, sky or earth, before there were any human beings, before hurricanes or mudslides, there existed the idea of transformation and return. Teshuva is woven into the fabric of the Universe. Change is our nature and transformation is always possible. Creation itself depends upon our ability to do teshuva, with ourselves, with each other, and certainly with the earth.
Hayom Harat Olam. It is not too late to conceive a new way of living in this world.
May we have the presence of mind to remember that this planet and all its life precedes us.
May we have the courage to experience the ecology of interconnectedness in which all things are already One.
And may we each be written for a year of sweetness and life.
Shana Tova UMetukah!
[1] Pesikta d’Rav Kahana 23:1
[2] Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 1:2
[3] Green, Arthur. Radical Judaism, p. 99.
[4] Deuteronomy 30: 11-14
[5] Walker, Alice. The Color Purple, p. 203.
[6] Piff, Paul and Keltner, Dacher. Why do we experience awe?
September 20, 2017
In late August, Hurricane Harvey wreaked havoc in Texas, Louisiana, Belize and Honduras. At the same time, an epic rainstorm in Sierra Leone caused unprecedented mudslides and an entire mountainside came down in Regent, on the outskirts of Freetown and killed at least 500 people. A week later, Hurricane Irma devastated parts of Florida and the Caribbean. Just this week, a 7.1 magnitude earthquake killed hundreds in Mexico. And just yesterday, I held my breath, awaiting the news of Hurricane Maria and its toll on Dominica and Puerto Rico.
The path of destruction of these storms is heartbreaking. Day after day, I have been sending prayers for safety and recovery all over the world. And I find myself returning to a Facebook post from one of my mentors, writer and activist Aurora Levins Morales, who herself is puertoriquena: "The eye of Irma is crossing Tortola, a place I love. Hitting Puerto Rico later today. This is not a natural disaster. This is reckless capitalist development, climate breakdown and colonialism that prioritizes profits over people. Predictions are that many areas of Puerto Rico will be without electricity for 4-5 MONTHS. This is not a natural disaster."
I clicked on her blog post where she continues: "Heavier than normal rainfall is one of the documented effects of global climate disruption, which overwhelming scientific evidence shows is being caused by human greed, mostly on the part of the rich countries of the global north...What keeps being hidden in plain view is that the rain itself is a crime, or at least the result of one."
There is a lesser known midrash that goes something like this:
Rabbi Eliezer taught: "The world was created on the twenty-fifth of Elul. This implies that the first person was created on Rosh Hashanah. In the first hour [of that day] the idea arose [in the Divine mind to create humankind]...in the ninth [hour Adam and Eve were] commanded [not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge], in the tenth [hour they] transgressed the commandment, in the eleventh [hour they were] judged, and in the twelfth pardoned by the blessed Holy One. The blessed Holy One said to Adam: “This will be a sign for your descendants. Just as you stood before me in judgment on this day and were pardoned, so too will they stand before me to be judged on this day and be pardoned.”[1]
There are two central myths associated with Rosh Hashanah. One is the creation of the world, often spun as the birthday of the world. This develops from the liturgy that declares, Hayom Harat Olam, Today the world is conceived. The other theme which comes directly from the early rabbinic writings is judgement. Rosh Hashanah is referred to as Yom HaDin, The Day of Judgement. We are taught that on the first day of the Hebrew month of Tishrei, God will judge each person.[2] We recite Unetane Tokef, declaring the Sacred Power of this Day and conjure the image of a shepherd numbering his flock. “On Rosh Hashanah it is written and on Yom Kippur it is sealed...מי יחיה ומי ימות. Who shall live and who shall die.” And we find ourselves declaring the awesomeness of a God we may or may not believe in, because in truth, our life is on the line. The theme of judgement, so integral to human psychology, is woven throughout the High Holiday machzor. It has stolen the stage so to say and certainly captivated our already anxious imaginations. And from this existential fear, grows the primary spiritual practice of these Days of Awe - Teshuva. The understanding that we humans are imperfect; that we have both the capacity and the longing to transform and heal; the understanding that Teshuva, Tefillah and Tzedakah - forgiveness, contemplation and righteous action - have cosmic impact.
So motivated by his own fear of death, Rabbi Eliezer was willing to re-write the myth of creation so that Rosh Hashanah could retain its focus as The Day of Judgement. By moving the creation of the world 5 days earlier and asserting that what was created on Rosh Hashanah was us human beings, this very long day of prayer and food can in fact focus on the themes of reward and punishment, on repairing the human/divine relationship.
What will it take to re-center creation in our spiritual lives?
We see the primacy of creation reflected throughout the book of psalms. Rabbi Art Green writes: “The celebration of creation, so central to the psalmist, calls out for revival in our day… the urgent need to transform human behavior in relation to the environment will be best supported by a religious life that returns to the Psalmists’ consciousness of our human place within (not above) the great symphony of creation.”[3]
Perhaps this is the real wisdom of Rabbi Eliezer? Perhaps the world was created on the 25th of Elul to underscore for us that the natural world precedes us human beings?
What we know about climate change is that it is not as value neutral as the word change makes it out to be. Scientists confirm rising seas, retreating glaciers, and extreme weather -- and all of their effects on human health and well-being, everything from more lung disease and vector-borne illnesses to injuries and deaths from extreme weather events. These changes are not part of the natural ebb and flow of creation. This is not natural phenomenon. It is the product of unjust global forces and it already does disproportionately cause poor people of color all over the world to suffer and die. And this is true in Philadelphia as well. Take one example, The Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES) fossil fuel refinery in South Philadelphia. It is the largest refinery on the East Coast and one of the oldest in the world. The refinery is responsible for 72% of the toxic air emissions in Philadelphia. If we continue to burn fossil fuels, 10% of Philadelphia’s population, over 150,000 people, will be displaced by sea level rise.
We also know that climate change is so overwhelming an issue, it can be hard to talk about. Research shows that seven in 10 Americans rarely or never discuss climate disruption with family and friends. Even as the struggle to prevent the Keystone Pipeline continues, even in the wake of the Water Protectors at Standing Rock, even with a local campaign for Green Jobs in North Philly, most of us, myself included, don’t know where to begin.
So too with Teshuva.
The call to transform ourselves, to heal and forgive, is so much bigger than our consciousness can hold.
This is why on the Shabbat leading up to Rosh Hashanah, the Torah gives us some extraordinarily direct and clear advice on how to do Teshuva, how to effect our own transformation:
“Because this instruction to do Teshuva is not beyond what you can understand, nor beyond your reach.
לו בשמים היא, It is not in heaven, so you can’t say:
‘Who can go up to the heavens and bring it to us and cause us to hear it so that we can do it?’
And it is not beyond the sea, so you can’t say:
‘Who can go across the sea and bring it to us and cause us to hear it so that we and do it?
No, Teshuva is very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart, and you can do it.”[4]
This year I am suggesting, that we add the earth to our Teshuva list.
These recent hurricanes have made me feel a kind of urgent responsibility - a need to be responsive. For some time I have been concerned but not alarmed. Composting and reusing my plastic bulk bags. Participating in civil disobedience against local and national pipelines, but not fully orienting my life around climate change. Until this Hurricane season. Until Aurora Levins Morales so bluntly said it: “These are not natural disasters...the rain itself is a crime, or at least the result of one.” They have caused me to ask: Where have we missed the mark? How might we include environmental justice in our internal accounting of our souls this High Holidays? And how might we cultivate an ecological consciousness that sustains us spiritually and quite literally?
I have come to understand that all our righteous struggles are ecological struggles, and need to be framed that way. In fact we all need to become eco-activists, not by putting down other struggles, but by connecting them. I have brainstormed a long list of possible responses, ranging from personal actions to local campaigns. But what feels much more urgent to me is that we as a community must begin the spiritual work of re-centering creation in our lives.
In the words of David Whyte in his poem “Everything is Waiting for You”:
Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice...
Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the
Conversation…
All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.”
While years of Jewish mythic exile have created vast tomes of insightful teachings, we have lost our intimate connection to land and ecology. We have lost, what I am calling, indigenous consciousness: the core understanding that everything is connected. So that when we lie down and when we rise up, when we go on our way - we are intimately aware that everything is alive and everything is connected; that we are one part of a larger ecosystem. This is the vast oneness of all life. And it is precisely this consciousness that we need to integrate into all of our struggles for justice and into every aspect of life. Because extraction is the orientation of Exile.
In her forthcoming essay, Ecology is Everything, Levins Morales writes:
“It’s heartbreaking that there are so many human beings who cling to the sinking ship of infinite piracy, unable to imagine a society of reciprocity, respect and mutual care that would meet the needs of all, including them...But for those of us who are able to envision that society, it’s essential that we understand this: every struggle is an ecological struggle.”
Environmental justice is racial justice is economic justice. The 2014 U.S. National Climate Assessment, concluded what we already know -- that “certain people and communities are especially vulnerable, including children, the elderly, the sick, the poor, and communities of color.” What the writings of Aurora Levins Morales have made clear to me, is that capitalism and corporate greed are at the heart of our ecological crisis. Corporate greed is the Amalek of our time and it is coming for our must vulnerable. And Jewish tradition teaches, we are obligated to respond.
But how?
Perhaps Kol Tzedek Justice and Action launches a new project this year and we get involved in the EQAT/POWER campaign for green jobs with PECO. One that if successful will lift 1 in 5 families in Philly out of poverty.
Perhaps we start a solar power coop in West Philly.
Maybe we create environmental justice hevrutas; intentional partners with whom we can each set personal goals about how to make Teshuva with the earth.
Maybe we really make an effort as a community to use less paper goods and compost our food waste.
Maybe some of us decide, like some other KT members already have, to only take vacations by train.
However, before we habitually fall into fix-it mode, I invite us to feel in our bones that the desecration of the environment is itself a form of exile from Our Source. I invite us to find a way back to the energy of this summers Solar Eclipse, so that we can all stand in awe of the ineffable, indescribable experience of being wholly part of something so much larger than we can imagine. I invite us to make allies with the sky above and the ground beneath us, and delight in creation, in all its magic, beauty and power.
In these treasured words by the great Alice Walker:
"My first step from the old white man was trees. Then air. Then birds. Then other people. But one day when I was sitting quiet and feeling like a motherless child, which I was, it come to me: that feeling of being part of everything, not separate at all. I knew that if I cut a tree, my arm would bleed. And I laughed and I cried and I run all around the house…” Shug continues, “I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.”[5]
In truth, this hurricane season has deconstructed yet another false binary. The two myths about Rosh Hashanah -- creation and judgment -- are not in fact distinct myths. They are two perspective on one deeply woven truth. As we have seen in Mexico and Miami, Houston, Flint and Puerto Rico, life hangs in the balance of our relationship to the earth. Creation and judgement are not mutually exclusive. They are warp and the weft of existence.
In hebrew we refer to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur as Yamim Noraim, Days of Awe. But in truth, the root of the word Noraim or Norah, means both Fear and Awe. It is precisely on Rosh Hashanah, that we are called to transform our fear that the earth will swallow us alive into Awe for that which inspires and transforms all life. Awe motivates people to do things that enhance the greater good. Awe helps bind us together.[6]
Our rabbis teach that even before the world was created the Holy One of Blessing created teshuvah, for how could creation be possible if change was not already present. Before there was day or night, sky or earth, before there were any human beings, before hurricanes or mudslides, there existed the idea of transformation and return. Teshuva is woven into the fabric of the Universe. Change is our nature and transformation is always possible. Creation itself depends upon our ability to do teshuva, with ourselves, with each other, and certainly with the earth.
Hayom Harat Olam. It is not too late to conceive a new way of living in this world.
May we have the presence of mind to remember that this planet and all its life precedes us.
May we have the courage to experience the ecology of interconnectedness in which all things are already One.
And may we each be written for a year of sweetness and life.
Shana Tova UMetukah!
[1] Pesikta d’Rav Kahana 23:1
[2] Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 1:2
[3] Green, Arthur. Radical Judaism, p. 99.
[4] Deuteronomy 30: 11-14
[5] Walker, Alice. The Color Purple, p. 203.
[6] Piff, Paul and Keltner, Dacher. Why do we experience awe?