Rest, Share, Release (Part I)

By Avi Sagi and Yedidia Stern

tr. Yale J. Reisner

Note: This essay was published in Israel’s Ha’aretz newspaper, on September 24, 2007- before the start of the previous shmita year. The authors relate to the Israeli reality then – which is only recently beginning to change. Many of the recent new initiatives around shmita have been taken as a response to critical appraisals and calls for action similar to the ones expressed here, but their trenchant critique remains highly relevant.

Shmita in Israel is an oppressive experience that misses a potential moment of benevolence in our national life.  The biblical concept has turned into an additional battleground between the halakhic authorities, one forbidding, the other permitting, without regard for the noble idea which has been stripped of its meaning in the Jewish state.  The list of the injured is long:  the religion, which is decaying into irrelevance and worse; the state, which is missing an opportunity to improve its image by donning glorious ethical Jewish garb and contributing to the repair of the world; Jewish agriculture, whose withered belly is struck by the fist of halakhic prohibition; and the citizenry in general, one-fifth of whom are poor and who will be forced to pay an exorbitant price for basic goods, particularly in the shmita year.

The Israeli Shmita Declaration

The following text is a manifesto that represents the spirit behind a fascinating initiative taking place in Israel, Shmita Yisraelit: putting the radical idea of Shmita on the map of Israel’s civil society. Scores of individuals, as well as 22 different organizations, have signed this declaration, with the intent of promoting initiatives that take their inspiration from the sabbatical vision of the Shmita year.

This unique integrative vision combines strengthening communities and renewing the commons, with combating entrenched poverty and debt release, and promoting local and sustainable food systems, with a strong statement of work-life balance. Spearheaded by Einat Kramer of Teva Ivri, and former MK Rabbi Michael Melchior, the organizations that have signed on range in their activities from environmental quality, debt relief, and social justice, to Jewish renewal, student organizations, community groups, and more.

The Religious Responsibility for Creation

By Barbara K. Darling

We live on a fragile planet.  Frogs are disappearing; by some counts 1 in 3 amphibian species are at risk of extinction.   Twenty to 25% of all mammal species are endangered.  Water supplies are fouled; coral reefs are destroyed; soils are depleted.  Poisons from the air find their way into the lungs of human children, causing unprecedented occurrences of asthma.  Pelicans and cormorants appear on television news stories, their feathers drenched in oil from an oil spill.  All of these grim examples—and countless more—demonstrate how human activity has damaged the earth.

We have not even mentioned the harsh reality of human-caused climate change.  Polar bears are losing their frigid habitats.  Populations from the Philippines to Pakistan to Long Island to California experience extreme weather events.  The systems on which humans and all other beings depend are in danger of collapsing–soon.

The Narrative of Shmita

By Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin

Let’s face it: Shmita has a marketing problem. It comes only once every seven years. It has little name recognition. It treads perilously close to being confused with the handy but derogating Yiddish word shmata – rag.  It has no memorable ritual to ground it; no identifiable symbol associated with it; no compelling narrative to frame it. It is – as presented in the Torah and in tradition – just a series of laws.

It’s as if we had to market in one spiritual bundle seat belts, the gas tax and city circulators. Those of us in the know could see the connection – safe, affordable, sustainable and equitable transit. We would know too the greater context: that the flow of people, ideas, goods and services form the backbone of the body politic.

But the whole is not intuitively obvious. Neither is Shmita. So how do we capture the power of the seventh year in an image or symbol that can move the spirit?

What is Enough?

By Rabbi Sheila Peltz Weinberg

“What is enough” seems to me the eternal question underlying the exploration of Sova and Shmita. This question calls out from every corner of our lives: Is there enough knowledge? Enough piety? Enough resilience? Enough money? Enough food/ land/water/oil/ copper/ iron – you name it? Enough time before things get worse? Enough community? Enough love? Enough faith?

How do we know if there is enough? How do we respond to this question when everything around us seems to be limited and running out? How do we take action that is not riddled with the anxiety of scarcity and absence?

Jewish Food Systems in Our Time

By Rabbi Andrea Cohen Kiener

An agrarian practice is embedded in all of the Jewish seasonal holidays. This is a rich trove to reclaim in our times, when we strive to see and practice our Judaism in a way that corresponds to the needs of the hour.

While they stood, the Jerusalem temples functioned as the geographic centers of a sustainable regional food system.  This simple fact evades our attention because our “temple” practice, our observance of seasonal Jewish holidays, is not tied up as intensely with our food system as it once was.

Re-Pacing and (Self) Renewal Part III

This is the conclusion of Jeremy Benstein’s in-depth look at sustainability and the forces, fundamental to our current way of life, that need to be examined and changed in order to move towards a true sustainability.

The linearity of our technological society has erased or overridden the cycles in our lives in so many ways. It is the rhythms and cycles – day, season, year, life – that allow us to pause and take stock, to see where we have been and where we are going, to feel the pace and pulse of our lives. This erasure is largely responsible for the ‘cult of speed,’ the highly unnatural tempo of life, including the turbo-charged rate of resource use, that is part and parcel of the lifestyle critiqued previously.

It’s no wonder that traditional tribal and religious societies emphasize cyclical views of time. The Bible itself begins not only with the description of the creation of the physical world, but of the creation of the week, of cycles in time. While the seven-day week is not a pre-existing natural rhythm, this spiritual-cultural cycle of the days of the week is the most integrated into our workaday lives, which for a Jew means from shabbat to shabbat.

Re-Pacing and (Self) Renewal Part II

This is the continuation of the discussion started by Jeremy Benstein last week.  The final segment of this discussion will appear here next week.

A critical look at how we experience and structure time in our lives is long overdue. Yes, it’s about time. There are multiple aspects of the role of time in our lives that relate to making the world more sustainable. I’d like to address two of them here: one has already gotten a great deal of press, but the other needs better PR, and will help us understand the deeper messages of sustainability.

Re-Pacing and (Self) Renewal

This is the first post of a three-part series by Jeremy Benstein – look for the forthcoming posts later this month.

Here’s the rub: our lives and the society we live in are unsustainable. There is ample proof of this. And so we, the activists – top-downer policy wonks, and bottom-upper grassrooters – shout from the rooftops that we need to be sustainable. Yet even as we mount campaign after campaign, we know in our heart of hearts that this is not the ultimate ideal we should be striving for. We feel that we must promote sustainability as a necessary minimum. At the very least, we must be sustainable – for how can it be otherwise?

“Mere continuing” however (for isn’t that what ‘sustaining ourselves’ means?) can’t be all there is to work for, or to look forward to, and given the lack of enthusiasm and deep widespread support, the public at large seem to be aware of that.

Returning to the Earth

By Celene Ayat Lizzio

As I write from the expansive woods of New Hampshire, hundreds of thousands in the Philippines are putting their lives back together from the pieces that remain.

If a compassionate heart paused to contemplate the devastation, it would be rent. Unknown and unthinkable numbers of fellow hearts have passed, their time on earth swallowed, leaving unspeakable pain.  Yet, in a self-interested moment, the same heart holds itself aright, in the face of unthinkable human loss, with an indulgent gratitude for its own relative security, having been spared, perhaps by fate, from the mighty gusts of wrath.