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Our “Sodomite-in-Chief’” lives in the White House

Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on

How can I use this label of contempt, “Sodomite,” against the President?

Here’s how:

The Bible tells the story of the city of Sodom, destroyed by a Flood of Fire for its sins. (Gen. 18-19) 

What was the sin of Sodom? Almost all Jewish commentary on the story makes clear that the sin of Sodom was not rampant homosexuality (as much of Christian tradition suggests) but rampant rage and violence toward foreigners, immigrants, and the poor.

That line of thought began with the Prophet Ezekiel (16:49-50) who said: “Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.”  This understanding has continued in rabbinic thought for two thousand years, till our own day.

There is another strand in the story: what might be called the sin of Lot. He was Abraham’s nephew, an immigrant to Sodom who like his uncle held as a high value the welcoming of foreigners as guests.

 Faced with a mob of Sodomites enraged that Lot had made his home a nest of immigrants and refugees, Lot offered his own daughters to be raped by the mob, in order to calm their rage against his foreign guests.

At first and second and third reading of Lot’s offer to let the mob rape his daughters if they will leave his foreign guests unharmed. we are horrified. Horrified that in order to protect the foreigners he is willing to sacrifice and destroy his own family.

This is exactly Sodom turned upside down. The citizens of Sodom who surrounded Lot’s house and threatened to rape or kill him and his guests are so obsessed with protecting their own city, their own jobs, their own culture that they are willing to wreak havoc upon foreigners.

Lot,  on the other hand, is so obsessed with protecting his guests that he is willing to wreak havoc on his own family.

Neither of these is a just or sacred solution to the tensions that often erupt between some "natives" and some "immigrants."

According to the story, once it becomes clear that not even ten just and decent people live in this hate-filled town, the Divine Breath of Life, the Wind of Change,  becomes a Burning Hyper-Hurricane -- so incensed at Sodom’s hatred of outsiders that the city is destroyed.

 

 

Lot survives, but his lot is not so pleasant. His wife dies as collateral damage in the disaster. The daughters whom he had offered up as mere objects think that all the other men in the world have died in the Flood of Fire. So they turn Lot into an object – just as he had treated them --  by getting him drunk to make him father their children.  Another kind of rape!

In the midst of this ugly story, does the Torah have any suggestion as to what a decent outcome might have been?

It does, in the bargaining between God and Abraham over whether Sodom should be destroyed in the first place.

In the underlying argument over whether to protect one's own city and own family at the cost of shattering the lives of immigrants and outsiders, or to protect the outsiders at the cost of shattering one’s own city, one's own family – – the famous tension between "particularism" and "universalism" – – Abraham’s challenge to God hints at a resolution.

And this is exactly what the Torah says God has in mInd. For God begins the process by letting Abraham in on the secret plan to punish the crimes of Sodom -- wiping out the city.

Why has God singled out Abraham? According to the Torah, precisely because God sees Abraham as both the progenitor of a sacred people and the bearer of blessings to all peoples.

And Abraham responds! --  by validating God’s Calling on him to become a blessing to all the families, peoples, cultures of the world. Abraham tries to protect and defend even this nasty foreign city. "What about the decent, innocent folk who live in Sodom?  Should the innocent be punished with the guilty? Is that what justice means? Shall not the Judge of all the world do justice?"

The Abraham who is to be the progenitor of a “particular” community -- Yisrael, the "Godwrestling" folk, the Jewish people.  – is the same Abraham who tries to protect a foreign city from God’s wrath.  

How to Cool the Earth & Restore Life-giving Climate

Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on

Climate Restoration Methods Draft 10/06/2017

By Peter Fiekowsky

[Fiekowsky is a physicist/ engineer in the Silicon Valley network, a graduate of MIT who has patented many technological improvements and has committed himself to work to restore a climate as life-giving for our children and grandchildren as it was for our parents and grandparents. He has founded a network and website called the Healthy Climate Alliance and has been working with The Shalom Center toward bringing together a mutireligious network to call for restoring a healthy climate.

For us, the Prophetic Call toward making that vision real is expressed in the very last passage of the very last of the classical Hebrew Prophets, Malachi, who lived 2500 years ago: "I [YHWH, the Interbeathing of all life] will send you Elijah the Prophet to turn the hearts of parents to children  and the hearts of children to parents, lest I [the Breath of life, the Wind of change,  become a Hyper-Hurricane] bring utter destruction on the Earth. (Mal. 3:23-24)

We share a conviction that the religious communities of the US are potentially the basis for turning this prophetic vision into vigorous  public support, as the religious communities did with racial justice half a centtury ago. We have already begun creating new liturgies, sermonic materials, and Spirit-filled forms of activism  to engage the deepest thoughts and emotions of our communities. And we also intend that the religious communities bring our own ethical and spiritual concerns to assess various different proposals for restoring a healthy climate --  some oroposals perhaps more risky than others, some perhaps more likely than others to embody social justice.

--  Rabbi Arthur Waskow, editor]


Methods for Climate Restoration

Introduction

There has been accelerated recognition that we are changing Earth’s climate to the extent that human civilization is imminently threatened. The villain is CO2, which is primarily created by burning fossil fuels. The respiration of plants—which absorb CO2 and turn it into oxygen— is the primary way it is addressed1. Over the past 150 years, we have burned so much more fossil fuel and destroyed so much plant life that we have thrown the planet out of balance2.

Reducing emissions

The concerted human activity and thinking about what governments and technology have to do have so far focused on slowing down and then stopping the human activity that adds to the CO2 load (e.g., reduction of emissions from cars, coal power stations being phased out, etc.).

Unfortunately, we have already disrupted the environment so much that is just not enough3. Not nearly enough. As urgently as we find ways to stop putting CO2 into the ecosystem, we have to find ways to take out what we have already put in and continue to put in.

The good news

Fortunately, emissions reduction is not the only tool at our disposal. We have the capacity to remove CO2 from our atmosphere both through novel technology4 and by speeding up natural decarbonization processes. This process is called "restoration". It is urgent and it is the ignored stepchild of the emerging global warming consciousness.

The Healthy Climate Alliance

The Healthy Climate Alliance is built upon the idea that it is our responsibility and our moral obligation to leave our children and future generations a climate as healthy as that which our grandparents gave us. The climate goal that embodies this message is returning to 300 parts per million (ppm) CO2 by 2050.

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the initiative of restoring the climate. Climate restoration cannot replace emissions reduction efforts—those are still necessary—but rather can work in parallel. We must begin this work now, because emissions reduction is not nearly enough to guarantee the survival of humanity. As it stands, technologies exist to

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begin the climate restoration process, and there is a high likelihood that other better technologies will be developed if we give researchers resources and support to do so. The critical action now is to recognize their importance, develop them, and scale them.

Achieving the Goal

Paris Agreement

The Paris Agreement5 was agreed upon by 195 nations in December 2015. It is the first universal, legally binding global climate deal. According to the UN Framework Convention6 on Climate Change,

the Paris Agreement’s central aim is to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change by keeping a global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

The Paris agreement calls for an 80% reduction in emissions by 2050 in order to stay below two degrees warming. However, the IPCC and prominent climate scientists have claimed that two degrees warming will still subject future generations to irreparable harm7. In short, the goals set forth in the Paris Agreement are insufficient.

Restoring a healthy climate

Achieving the goal of giving our children a healthy climate with zero warming would require —in addition to following through on the Paris goals8—removing about a trillion tons of CO2 from the atmosphere. This means removing about 50 Gt CO2 per year for 20-30 years. This rate of CO2 removal is ten times what is called for in the Paris agreement9.

There is a widespread assumption that carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies that could achieve that rate do not yet exist (After all, surely if they did exist, we would be hearing about and acting upon them!). However, that assumption is false; there are various technologies that are capable of that rate, and it is likely that others could be discovered through research. So to correct that assumption, this paper describes several technologies that can be scaled up at reasonable cost.

The methods described in this paper are not hypothetical--they already exist. Decarbonization technologies have been developed, and newer and better technologies are being developed every year. These methods establish a performance bar that will only be raised. They were chosen for inclusion in this paper based on how easy they are to visualize being expanded to the needed scale.

Removing CO2 can happen in two general ways. One is that CO2 is captured from the air and then turned into a stable, productive, benign form (usually referred to as Carbon Dioxide

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Removal or CDR). The other way is that the natural earth systems that remove CO2 from the atmosphere (in particular, photosynthesis) are enhanced or accelerated to increase the amount of CO2 that is processed and removed by nature (usually referred to as referring primary productivity). In addition to these processes, it is likely that cooling methods, known as Solar Radiation Management (SRM), will be needed in the short term.

Carbon Dioxide Removal

CDR, the foundational technology of climate restoration, can be divided into land-based and ocean-based technologies. Land-based methods mostly start with “direct air capture” (DAC), which concentrates CO2 from the atmosphere for sequestration or use. Ocean-based methods restore the oceans and their primary productivity with the immediate result of increasing fish and seaweed production, while simultaneously sequestering carbon as detritus falls towards the ocean floor.

Many CDR methods yield secondary products (e.g., fish, seaweed, concrete aggregate) that can be sold. This allows these methods to be viable for businesses with little or no public subsidy. Because of this, the cost becomes inconsequential.

DAC

The problem of CO2 capture involves both capturing the CO2—from the atmosphere or from the flues of coal or other plants—and then putting that CO2 into stable and harmless forms. There are seven DAC technologies, which are listed in a Forum for Climate Engineering Assessment 2017 paper10 along with their costs. In recent years three DAC companies have made news with their plants, Climeworks11 in Switzerland, Carbon Engineering12 in British Columbia, and Global Thermostat13 in California. Global Thermostat (which we are focusing on due to the authors’ proximity and familiarity with it) asserts an at-scale cost of $10-$35 per ton CO2. They are described in Drawdown14, from Paul Hawken.

Land-Based CDR

Once the CO2 has been captured from the air using any of the DAC methods, it can be converted into a stable form. Many of these forms have commercial uses, while others use natural processes to keep the CO2 sequestered.

Commercial uses for CO2

Aggregate

One productive economic output for CO2 from DAC is producing aggregate (limestone) for concrete used in roads and buildings. It is safe, profitable, and scalable. A process

Climate Restoration Methods Draft 10/06/2017

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developed by Blue Planet Ltd15, Los Gatos, California simulates the chemistry used by shellfish to produce limestone from calcium and CO2. Global demand for aggregate is currently 54 Gt/year16, which corresponds to potential sequestration of 20 Gt CO2 per year into concrete. The first plants built use CO2 from industrial exhaust from power plants or steel, cement, and aluminum plants. Later plants could also get their CO2 from DAC companies.

As of the writing of this paper, aggregate appears to be the only commercially viable output from DAC.

Other commercial uses

There are other commercial uses of CO2, like in the manufacturing of plastic and carbon fiber17. However the global market for these materials can absorb less than 1%18 of the carbon sequestered in aggregate globally.

Natural processes

Basalt fields

One way to use nature to absorb CO2 is to bury the CO2 extracted from the atmosphere into basalt rock fields, which are common around the world. When water is present, The CO2 dissolves in water—which can be added to the CO2 stream if it is not already present, increasing costs—producing carbonic acid, which reacts with the rock to produce stable carbonates over a period of 2 months to 2 years19.

Sequestering CO2 in basalt fields is estimated to cost about $8/ton, which must be added to the DAC cost, bringing total costs to $23-$58 per ton. This implies that a carbon price of about $50/ton, paid for sequestration, could finance the restoration of our atmosphere. If this were the only CDR technique, it would require 2.5% of global GDP, a quarter of global health spending. However aggregate, fish, and seaweed production could together sequester CO2 at the required rate at minimal, or even negative cost.

Other natural processes

Other CDR techniques commonly recommended for the Paris two degree warming goal, such as biochar20, BECCS21 (bio-energy with carbon capture and storage), and afforestation22 are not suitable for climate restoration because their maximum scale, although useful for a mitigation goal, is about 1/10 of the 50 Gt CO2 per year required for climate restoration.

Ocean-based CDR

The earth’s surface is 71% ocean23, and much of that ocean is blue “ocean desert”24, which is too hot and low in critical nutrients to grow phytoplankton, the photosynthesizing organisms

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that make the sea green. This represents an enormous unused opportunity to harness sunlight for carbon sequestration without disturbing existing agriculture. Increasing the ocean’s primary productivity—the amount of photosynthesis—increases its uptake of CO225.

This carbon is sequestered as long as the carbon-containing products are stored, unoxidized, in the ocean. Typically, this sequestration lasts for centuries or millennia26. This is similar to the situation on land, where trees and roots store CO2 as long as they remain unoxidized. Also similar to land, increased productivity is associated with higher food (fish and seaweed) production.

Oceans contain 98% of all the carbon in the atmosphere and oceans. Sequestering all the excess atmospheric CO2 would increase ocean carbon content by less than 1%27.

Ocean-based CDR tends to be profitable because the fish, seaweed, and phytoplankton produced can generally be sold to human populations for food, energy, and chemical feedstocks.

Ocean Iron Fertilization

One method of restoring ocean primary productivity is ocean iron fertilization (OIF)28, which distributes minute amounts of high-iron dust in a manner similar to the way volcanic dust blowing onto the ocean fertilizes it. This increases the primary productivity—often producing record fish harvests—and CO2 sequestration. The dust distribution is performed by ship, and when performed in territorial waters, income can be generated from fishing licenses and taxes.

Marine permaculture

Another method of restoring primary productivity to the oceans is called marine permaculture. It involves the use of simple, lightweight structures in deep water, as described in Tim Flannery’s Sunlight and Seaweed29 and featured in Project Drawdown’s ‘coming attractions’, with this description:

The key technology involves marine permaculture arrays (MPAs), lightweight latticed structures roughly half a square mile in size, submerged 80 feet below sea level, to which kelp can attach. Attached buoys rise and fall with the waves, powering pumps that bring up colder, nutrient-rich waters from far below. Kelp soak up the nutrients and grow, establishing a trophic pyramid rich in plant and animal life.

Plants that are not consumed die off and drop into the deep sea, sequestering carbon for centuries in the form of dissolved carbon and carbonates. Floating kelp forests could sequester billions of tons of carbon dioxide, while providing food, feed, fertilizer, fiber, and biofuels to the world.

Climate Restoration Methods Draft 10/06/2017

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Other ocean-based methods

Other scalable CDR techniques discussed by the IPCC30, such as geochemical weathering31, would require significant public financing

FLOOD EPA WITH BIBLICAL WARNINGS OF THE FLOOD

Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on

"God gave Noah the Rainbow Sign:

No More Water; The Fire Next Time!"

INTERFAITH AND ECO-ETHICAL ACTION 

TO HEAL THE PLANET & HUMAN CIVILIZATION

Petitions are not enough!

Let’s send a FLOOD of Sacred texts, objects, pictures and environmental books to Scott Pruitt, head of the Environmental Protection Agency --  which he is swiftly turning into the Earth Poisoning Agency.

The story of Noah, which Jews will be reading in the Torah-reading cycle this next Shabbat, October 20-21, tells the story of an utterly disastrous planetary Flood brought on by corrupt human behavior, in which only the spiritual depth and creative ingenuity of a few people save enough species in the web of life to begin anew. 

The Flood parable stands as a warning to our own generation. Indeed, ancient Jewish commentary (Midrash Rabbah on Genesis, 49:9) and a Southern Black spiritual warn us that we might bring a Flood of Fire on ourselves:  “God gave Noah the Rainbow Sign: No more Water, the Fire next time!”

And in fact we are now suffering from both Floods of Water and of Fire, brought on by burning fossil fuels, happening faster that we can offer support for the victims. A climate crisis is already afflicting us, right now. Just in the United States, three Hyper-Hurricanes in one month, and unprecedented wildfires in parched California

And in the very midst of these unnatural disasters, the person in charge of the EPA has decided to destroy the CLEAN POWER PLAN, one of the most important steps the U.S. has taken to reduce carbon emissions, the main contributor to climate change.

Mr. Pruitt professes to be a person of faith.  And the communities of faith in America are potential sources of healing that are beginning to awaken to this danger and to the need to make our entire planet an Ark against disaster.

So we are calling on all people of faith and of ethical commitment to heal our Mother Earth to send the EPA and its director Flood-related passages from the Bible or Quran, from prayer books,  from other sacred texts and objects, or photos of the recent devastations and of the Rainbow.  These could go along with your own personal message and prayer that he will leave in place and even strengthen  the Clean Power Plan —

Indeed, pray and urge that he look beyond ending CO2 emissions to removing CO2 from the atmosphere —looking  toward the restoration of a climate as healthy for our children and grandchildren as it was for our parents and grandparents   — thus turning the hearts of the generations toward each other "lest the Earth be utterly destroyed" (Malachi 3: 23-24)..

Why actual texts and objects? These make a stronger statement and will be harder to ignore or throw away. (But if you are indeed worried about possible violations of the sanctity of a sacred book, that is a good reason to send a passage instead, with your note. You could even send a print-out of this letter.)

We are trying to reach Mr. Pruitt and the American  people in a language that many of us understand. We envision a DELUGE, preferably from every state and perhaps other countries.

We encourage you to make copies of this Call and distribute them. We encourage rabbis and Jewish congregations to announce the beginning of this campaign this Shabbat as one action to carry forward our reading of the Flood story  --  our own effort to build an Ark and lift the Rainbow of protection for all Earth. For other religious communities, we encourage spreading the word as soon as possible.

For secular folks, we encourage you to send your favorite environmental book, or a bound copy of your research, or a framed picture of a place or species you hold dear that would be or already is being affected by climate change, or a framed picture of the devastation.

How to deliver them? We will gather these mailings at a church in Washington DC near the EPA and then choose an  appropriate time when an assemblage of the faithful can gather in a vigil to deliver them by hand to the EPA at 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, only a few blocks from the White House.  

Please send your sacred texts and objects, photos of the Floods, letters, even just a copy of this Call, to: 

The Shalom Center, c/o New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, 1313 New York Ave NW, Washington, DC 20005

If you are also interested in taking part in a possible nonviolent, prayerful in-person vigil at the EPA in the near future, please email:  Flood@theshalomcenter.org  with your name, affiliation, address, and phone number. 

Blessings of shalom, salaam, peace for Earth and all its human communities --

  • Rabbi Katy Allen (Jewish Climate Action Network, Boston)

    Rabbi Elliot Dorff (American Jewish University of Los Angeles)

    Dr. Mirele Goldsmith (Jewish Climate Action Network,  NYC)

    Rabbi David Ingber (Congregation Romemu)

    Rabbi Raachel Jurovics (President, Ohalah Rabbinical Association) 
    Rabbi Mordechai Liebling (Reconstructionist Rabbinical College) 
     
    Ruth Messinger (Board, Hazon)
     
    Rabbi David Shneyer (Congregation Am Kolel)

    Rabbi Arthur Waskow  (The Shalom Center)

    Rabbi Rain Zohav (Interfaith Families Project of Greater Washington)

    [Signers are signing as individuals only; affiliations are mentioned for identification only.]

Carrying Isaiah into the Streets for Yom Kippur

Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on

Dear friends, Yesterday I reported that P’nai Or of Philadelphia, a Jewish-renewal congregation led by Rabbi Marcia Prager and blessed with a strong tikkun-olam (“Heal the World”) committee, will carry the Prophet Isaiah into the streets on Yom Kippur.

The crucial Prophetic reading for Yom Kippur is a passage of Isaiah in which he warns that fasting is not the point of the Great Fast ---   justice and compassion are the point. Only when the whole society descends to the depths – – actively standing with the poor, the outcasts, the desperate – – can the whole society rise to experience the spiritual heights of Shabbat, the sabbatical year, God’s radiance. (For an “awoke” translation of the Isaiah passage, see <https://theshalomcenter.org/isaiah-lives-challenge-yom-kippur>)

Although time is short for other congregations to plan this kind of action before this Friday evening when Yom Kippur begins, it may still be possible. So I thought it might be useful to provide the crucial graphics and instruments by which P’nai Or will step forward -– literally! -- to pose a challenge in Isaiah’s name. And congregations of other faiths and traditions might consider this or some analogous action.

First, a leaflet to explain what will be happening and invite congregants to take part. (For those who don’t choose to, prayers will continue inside the synagogue.)

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

TODAY we will hear the words of Isaiah

after the Torah service:

“Let the oppressed

go free.

Break off every yoke!

Share your bread

with the hungry.

Do not hide yourself

from them!”

 THIS YEAR, LET’S TURN THESE WORDS INTO ACTION AS WE

BECOME MODERN DAY ISAIAHS!

ALL WHO ARE ABLE WILL MARCH FROM OUR SHUL

INTO PUBLIC SPACE AT NEARBY SHOPS & STORES --

TO SPEAK OUT ABOUT CURRENT YOKES OF OPPRESSION

(APPROXIMATELY 3:00-4:00 PM)

Several members will speak out about actions we can take this year to promote social justice in the Delaware Valley. All those who march can participate as witnesses and by handing out information to shoppers.

This year, we will also share a collaboration with the High Point Café which will be collecting donations

for food for the poor and homeless of our city.

Those who remain at shul will send us off with blessings and continue with the Yizkor ritual where small groups share events in their lives that were joyous and those that brought grief.

We on the march will gather to observe Yizkor outside for our beloveds and for those who have died this year in the name of social justice and due to hurricanes and earthquakes.

We will return to join in El Maley Rachamim, the memorial prayer for the dead, with the whole community.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

And here is what the community will carry when its members walk forth. One congregant, Tobie Hoffmn, stands before the Ark and the Torah Scroll, holding one of the placards of Isaiah’s teachings:

 

 

Why is this  happening?

We are living in a moment of American history when the power of the US government is devoted not to compassion but to contempt;  not to justice but to subjugation.  Many different American communities have worked out ways of publicly condemning and resisting this attempt to fasten despotism on a free people:

·      Women marched in defiant millions on the day after the Inauguration of a President given to bodily sexual abuse and political hostility to women’s rights.

·      Thousands gathered at airports to welcome immigrants and refugees who had been barred by the new government.

·       Football and basketball players have taken to kneeling instead of standing for the “National Anthem,” to challenge endemic racism, police violence, and the contempt poured on peaceful protest by the President.

·      And for Jews, as the Days of Awe and spiritual Transformation come alive in the spirals of our calendar, many rabbis and congregations have drawn on ancient and recent Jewish wisdom to speak out in love of immigrants, in pursuit of racial justice, in support of underpaid and overworked workers, in commitment to heal the sick, in affirmation of religious freedom for Muslims as well as Jews, in concern about the devastation that global scorching is visiting through flooded cities and countries, parched crops, and desperate famines.

Mostly this speaking-out has been happening within the walls of synagogues. P’nai Or of Philadelphia decided to encourage its Yom Kippur congregants who chose, to take another step –-  literally.

Torah teaches that thousands of years ago, Abraham began his great adventure when he heard the Call to “Lech l’cha! Walk forth into your deepest self!”

Isaiah walked into the midst of a crowd that thought it was obeying the rules of fasting for Yom Kippur, calling out to them to feed the hungry and break off the handcuffs of those imprisoned by injustice —and he kept walking and speaking even when some in the crowd shook their fists at him and threatened violence.

Just fifty years ago, Abraham Joshua Heschel understood the Selma March for racial justice as a time when “My legs were praying.”

So some who gather at P’nai Or on Yom Kippur to chant and fast and bring food to feed the poor of the city will also walk forth into their deepest selves, carrying the words of Isaiah into public space.

May their legs be prayer, their message be heard, and may all American houses of worship and justice and compassion and healing walk forth into their deepest selves.

From 1946 to Rosh Hashanah Tonight: A Blessing

Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on


I was 12 years old in the summer of 1946, a camper in a Jewish day camp in Baltimore, sponsored by the “Y” – the YM/YWHA. That summer I was the editor of our mimeographed weekly newsletter, “The Y’s Owl.” 

That summer, August 6 was the first anniversary of the destruction of Hiroshima, tens of thousands of people killed with a single atomic bomb.  That day in 1946 was also Tisha B’Av, the day when Jews mourn the destruction of two ancient Temples in Jerusalem.

On that day I wrote an editorial for “The Y’s Owl,” the first serious writing of my life. I ignored Tisha B’Av , except perhaps in some archetypal silent sense in which I sensed but did not  mention the connection – the danger of the destruction of all that is most holy. I wrote that Hiroshima pointed toward an obvious truth: the human race must put an end to war.

This year, 2017, more than half a century later,  and yesterday -- seven weeks after Tisha B'Av --  we are supposed to have come from destruction and grief to new life, a new year, Rosh Hashanah, a time of transformation.

Yesterday the ruler of the most powerful nation on Earth spoke before the assembled nations of the world:  “The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea."

“Totally destroy.” A nation is a label for millions of people. Men, women, children. Laughing, weeping, makimg love,  building homes, scanning smart-phones, eating breakfast.  Millions obliterated, turned to smoke and ashes.The world a desert, devoid of life

I went to sleep last night with an image shadowing my sleep:

And yet I woke up this morning with a different image in my eyes:

Not yet devoid of life. A sprout of hope, of active nurturing.

And then another vision:

Beyond what seems to be the arid overwhelming desert of fear and oppression, rivulets of love connect and flow, surprise us by watering our lives. —

Tonight begins the time of Transformation.    Tomorrow we will take our misdeeds and cast them into the running water of our lives – not to be thrown “away” – there is no “away” in our interwoven world – but to wash away  their erring and their cruelty, to be cleansed of their mistakes and filled with the waters of life and love and clarity of vision. 

So now we at The Shalom Center thank you for all that you are doing to heal our wounded world.   And we bless you and all of us, all the beings who breathe the Breath of Life and drink the Waters of Life, of healing and rebirth – for a year of rivulets.  

Shalom, salaam, sohl, paz, 평화 pyeonghwa, peace – for all us human earthlings and for all of Earth. --  Arthur

From Hyper-Hurricanes to Life-Giving Action

Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on

In the wake of Hyper-Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, it may be especially appropriate to address the tradition that  Rosh Hashanah is Hayom Harat Olam --  “Today is the Birthday of the World.” Or as some say, the day of the birthing of adam (humanity) from adamah (earth). (Gen 2: 7).

 For those who don’t include Rosh Hashanah in their celebrations, it is still noteworthy that the Biblical tradition teaches that the interwoven relationship between adam and adamah is the central sacred aspect of our relationship with YyyyHhhhWwwHhhhh  -– the Interbreathing Spirit of the world. That relationship is intimately connected with eco-social justice.

The sacred Interbreathing of CO2 and Oxygen between animals and vegetation is now so overheated by our burning fossil fuels that it becomes not only the Wind of Change but Hyper-Hurricanes of destruction.

Leviticus 25 calls on us to create a rhythm of work and restfulness with the earth, and Leviticus 26 warns that if we don’t, the result will be great storms, floods, droughts, famines, plagues of disease, and mass refugee disturbances.

This spiritual wisdom was rooted in the practical experience of farmers and shepherds.

Today we can draw not only on that ancient indigenous practical experience but on modern science and on the new practical experience of dreadful disasters.  Today we see that because we have refused to let the Earth rest from our poisoning the atmosphere with too much CO2 and methane, all the disasters of Leviticus 26 are coming upon us.

What can we do?

  1. Organize a Neighborhood Solar Co-op.  We can act on our own, making a real chemical difference to the earth and our neighborhoods, and a growing political difference in our country. Gather a group of friends, neighbors, congregants to explore what it means to create a Neighborhood Solar Co-op (or Wind Co-op, if that is more practical on your terrain). Begin by looking at two websites:

    <http://communitypowernetwork.com/>
    A nation-wide network of neighborhood-based solar-energy co-ops groups. It can help with advice and support.

    <http://nwphillysolarcoop.com/> 

    NPSC (Northwest Philly Solar Co-op, pronounced Knapsack) is a group in Northwest Philadelphia inspired and sparked by The Shalom Center. It has grown as an independent body and is now serving several dozen households, with more to come. It could be a useful model for your own congregation or your neighborhood.

    Call a public meeting for all who want to explore the possibility of a solar co-op to hear speakers and ask questions. Begin your co-op  with those who attend and then say “Yes!”

2.  Support the OFF Act -- Off Fossil Fuels for a Better Future Act (HR 3671), which would transition our country to 100% renewable energy by 2035. It has been introduced by seven members of Congress -- Tulsi Gabbard  (HI), Nanette Barragan (CA), Barbara Lee (CA), Ted Lieu (CA), Jamie Raskin (MD), Keith Ellison (MN) and Jan Schakowsky (IL).

The OFF Act requires 100 percent renewable energy by 2035 (and 80 percent by 2027), places a moratorium on new fossil fuel projects, bans the export of oil and gas, and also moves our automobile and rail systems to 100 percent renewable energy.  It provides for a truly just transition for environmental justice communities and those working in the fossil fuel industry.

The bill requires that people in impacted communities have a leading role in the development and implementation of clean energy plans and regulations, and establishes an equitable transition fund and workforce development center, paid for by closing an offshore tax loophole and repealing federal tax breaks for the fossil fuel industry.

Please call 202-224-3121, ask for your Member of the House of Representatives, and ask your Member to co-sponsor the OFF Bill, HR 3671. Say something about your reasons  -- religious, ethical, your grandchildren, your horror at the devastation wrought by Harvey and Irma and the Bangla Desh floods and the terrible droughts and famines in central Africa.

Ask your congregation or its social-action committee to join in this effort and hold public forums to support the OFF Act.

3. Explore “Climate Restoration.”    Some scientists are now proposing to go even beyond OFF Fossil Fuels to “Climate Restoration.” That means withdrawing a trillion tons of carbon dioxide from Earth’s atmosphere, so that our children and grandchildren can take joy and sustenance from a climate as life-giving as that which sustained our parents and grandparents, with a level of eco-social justice that many of our forebears did not experience.

Why undertake this effort? Because even zero emissions by 2035 will leave so much CO2 and methane in the atmosphere that  “unnatural disasters” will strike blow after blow at human civilization.

To begin  discussion of Climate Restoration in your friendship group, neighborhood, or congregation, click to  <http://www.healthyclimateproject.org/> and  <https://www.climate-restoration-foundation.com/>. On this latter website, please learn from what is on there but do NOT write them; they have told me they are focused on working with scientists and are hoping to avoid being overwhelmed by incoming mail.

If you are celebrating the New Year, learning your way into these possibilities can be as deep and full a religious practice as hearing the Shofar.

Indeed, in our day these actions meet the very outcry that the Shofar calls  to us--  that in this great crisis we “Awaken!” and “Transform!” our lives.

Blessings of shalom, salaam, peace, for Mother Earth, her human earthlings,  and all her other life-forms --  Arthur

Houston: An UNNATURAL Disaster. Personal Tales, Intelligent Diagnosis, Activist Tool-Kit

Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on

There are three sections to this letter from me: (a) Two personal reports from people in Houston; (b) a brief diagnosis of what caused this unnatural disaster; (c) My suggested Tool-kit of what to do now. Please read all three.

 (a) A few years ago, I was invited to speak at the Jewish Community Center of Houston about Judaism and the climate crisis. In the process,  I met a number of folks with whom I've occasionally kept in touch.

On Monday I wrote them as follows:

"Dear friends, I am worried about all of you. Please let me know how you are, and what help The Shalom Center and I might be able to give. Blessings for you-all that the life-preservers of love buoy you up above the waters of loss and sorrow. —  Arthur "

And Phyllis wrote some of them whom she had also gotten to know as members of a Chanting community.

This is one of the letters we got back:

"My husband and I are safe with my sister in [another state]. But flood waters have taken our home, our cars, and many things we care about in Houston.

"The immense suffering of so many from this huge storm is overwhelming.

"Today, i tried to chant Ki Tavor BaMayim   --- I Won't Let The Waters Overwhelm You, but the tears and emotion flowed so powerfully that I could not speak. I ask your support to chant it for/with me as I navigate the waters of change in my life, and for all of those who are facing challenges of losing their homes."

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

From another letter back:

"Thank you for checking in.  

"I am fortunate to be in a part of the city that is NOT flooded.  I have power and water.  I am grateful.  

"I think that Hurricane Harvey is asking for a shift to renewable energy by shutting down refineries along the coast.

"I know people who are in bad shape right now.  It is a sorrowful time and also a time for being close.  

"I picked up my parents last night at 3am from the George R. Brown convention center where they were transported from the Meyerland area --- first by motor boat and then by police high-water emergency vehicles.  They were wet and had been in the rain for 2 - 3 hours.  They were cold and hungry when I picked them up --- not having eaten all day.  I brought hot chamomile tea in my car and blankets. 

"Brought them home to my house and made scrambled eggs and corn tortillas.  and then put them to bed.  We all slept until 11:30 am and spent the day inside cooking food together.  I haven't spent close time with my parents like this in a long time.  It was a lovely day.

"How is it that we are warm and dry while others are standing on their rooftops waiting for a boat to pick them up - blows my mind.  

"And if you watch the news ... Every story begins with ... "This is unprecedented rainfall that this city has never seen ever."  

"I wish that their next sentence would be something about climate change.  

"Again - thank you so much for asking about all of us.  So kind ---"

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

(b) So here is the “next sentence" that my Houston friend could not find in his local newspaper– – the sentence about climate crisis. Instead it is coming to him, and you, from The Shalom Center. The national press – – for example, the New York Times – – has begun to name the "elephant" in the Houston room. No, not the "elephant" but the Tyrannosaurus Rex in the room. The ferocious dinosaur that has already begun to chew up our civilization, with the crucial help of Big Oil and its corrupt enablers in the Trump Administration.

Trump has shattered the Environmental Protection Agency and turned it into a new EPA -- the Earth Poisoning Agency.

My Houston friend mentions that the Houston press has not begun to connect the terrible floods with the climate crisis. Perhaps that is because the oil industry is so dominant in Texas politics that the press there dares not say the truth. Or perhaps, to take a kind view, they are too busy covering the disaster itself. But to any clear-eyed independent observer, the connection is obvious.

The surface waters of the Gulf of Mexico are hotter than they have ever been in all recorded history. That is a consequence of global scorching. Its result is more intense, more powerful hurricanes. And our over-heated atmosphere sucks up more water into clouds of water vapor, and then dumps them in the unprecedented rainfall that is drowning Houston.

It is ironic that Texas is both one of the "hot centers" of Big Oil, and a center of the growing solar-energy business. But the feverish, furious search for still more oil to burn still has more political strength than its wind and solar remedies.

Unless we transform this politics, your city may become the next Houston. The farm that grows your food may become the next scorched earth of drought and famine. Your own backyard may become the next grazing ground for the mosquitoes bearing West Nile or Zika virus and the ticks bearing Lyme disease,  whose habitats have been expanded by the overheating planet.

(c ) What can we do? Here is a tool-kit of suggestions:

  1. Call together between 10 and 20 of your con-congregants in your synagogue, church, mosque, or, or your coworkers, or your neighbors. Explain that you want to form a "Hurricane Harvey Relief And Prevention Community" in which prevention of the next unnatural disaster will be as important as helping Harvey’s victims.  Take the following

Shalom Center Demands Resignation of JCPA President for Protecting Anti-Semites in White House

Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on

JCPA says "Shush" in fear of Big Donors

The Forward yesterday reported that the Jewish  Council for Public Affairs (JCPA), an umbrella group that is supposed to carry Jewish concerns on public policy into the public arena, had urged Jewish organizations not to demand that the White House fire Steve Bannon and other white supremacist officials.

The JCPA ‘s memo said that making this demand might alienate major donors.

The memo was sent by, and explained by, David Bernstein, president of JCPA.

The Shalom Center demands the immediate resignation of David Bernstein and immediate steps by JCPA to cleanse itself of toadying to Jewish billionaires instead of serving the interests and values of American Jews.

 

We invite and urge all members, friends, and readers of The Shalom Center to join in a petition to the JCPA to clean its house, beginning at the top.  


Although donations to support serious Jewish work may be useful, JCPA’s decision kowtows to donors who think it is “good for the Jews” to have anti-Semites and white supremacists in positions of great power.  Their loyalty is clearly not to the Jewish people, Jewish values,  or the Jewish future  — which should be JCPA’s central concern.

Our petition ends, “In the spirit of the approaching High Holy Days, we urge immediate action by the JCPA to do tshuvah, repenting from this perversion of Jewish values, needs, and interests , and turning toward a renewed commitment to  the freedom of American Jews in the midst of a renewed American democracy. “

You can sign by clicking here:

https://theshalomcenter.org/civicrm/petition/sign?sid=22&reset=1


Please forward this letter to your friends and colleagues by clicking here:

Background information:

The  memo went out across the country a few days after the Charlottesville explosion of anti-Semitic, racist violence  -- when the Swastika and the Confederate Battle Flag of Slavery flew side by side  and a White Supremacist murdered a nonviolent peaceful pro-democracy protester.  And after Mr. Trump had put a White House "kosher" stamp on the neo-fascist mob as including many “fine people.”

In other words, to keep Jewish multimillionaire and billionaire donors on board, the JCPA thinks the Jewish community should tolerate ultra-right-wing racists and anti-Semites in the highest ranks of power in the United States.

There could be no more disgusting dereliction from the protection not only of Jewish freedom and Jewish lives, but from the defense and  revitalization of democracy in America -- which is now under attack from the White House.

To read more: http://forward.com/news/national/380857/exclusive-jewish-groups-did-not-call-for-bannons-firing-for-fear-of-losing/

This episode speaks beyond itself, to the need for z top-to-bottom rethinking of the way in which the American Jewish community operates, and how some of its major institutions depend on Big Money, not on real people  -- their members.

Meanwhile, I am proud to report that several large organizations of American rabbis made clear what true Jewish values are by announcing they would not take part in a traditional annual pre-Rosh Hashanah telephone conversation between hundreds of rabbis and the President.

Not this President! --  they said.

You can sign the petition  for a JCPA housecleaning by clicking here:

https://theshalomcenter.org/civicrm/petition/sign?sid=22&reset=1

Please forward this letter to your friends and colleagues by clicking here:

A RABBINIC CALL TO PREVENT A NUCLEAR “FLOOD OF FIRE” AND TO SEEK PEACE AND PURSUE IT

Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on

As we face the incredibly dangerous hot-tempered exchanges of nuclear threats between the governments of North Korea and the United, States, we at The Shalom Center recall that we were founded in 1983 precisely to become a Jewish voice on the nuclear arms race,  which was then getting very hot between Reagan and Kosygin. ( I had already written three "secular" books on nuclear deterrence and disarmament,   and beginning in 1981 I had been developing a Jewish  language for addressing the nuclear danger —  drawing on rabbinic midrash about the “ Flood of Fire” and the Rainbow Sign  as the symbol of preventing such a flood of fire.)


We kept this as our central concern for almost ten years, until  the collapse of the USSR and the end of the US-SU arms race sent us to address the climate crisis.

So The Shalom Center  is ready to address this mmoment just as we did in developing the Rabbinic Statement on the Climate Crisis 3 years ago, and receiving  almost 500 signatures by rabbis of  every stream of Judaism.

So we invite  any and all Rabbis and Cantors and other Jewish spiritual leaders to sign. We have set up an online page to receive these signatures.  The link is as follows: <https://theshalomcenter.org/civicrm/petition/sign?sid=20&reset=1>

^^^^  ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^  ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^  ^^^^  ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^  ^^^^  ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^
 
A  RABBINIC CALL TO   PREVENT A NUCLEAR “FLOOD OF FIRE” 
AND TO SEEK PEACE AND PURSUE IT
 

When you approach a city to wage war against it, you shall first offer it terms of peace.

Deuteronomy 20:10

 

I will create a new expression of the lips:

“Peace, Peace to the one who is far off and the one who is near,” says God…

Isaiah 57:19

 

Wisdom is better than weapons of war.

Ecclesiastes 9:18

 

In a world of extreme, violent power, with leaders who posture dangerously with zealous, immoderate rhetoric, we rabbis in the United States have joined to express a demand and a prayer, based in the sacred legacy of our tradition and the profound suffering of Jewish and world history.

 

This is a time for diplomacy not destruction, discussion not discord, a leadership of level-headedness not the bravado of brinksmanship.  Recent actions of te government of North  Korea (the People’s Republic of Korea)  represent a severe, urgent threat to the United States but we must not let its leader succeed in his provocations, triggering our fears in such a way that we add to the fury and fire rather than pursue a comprehensive strategy of diplomatic, economic, psychological, and other approaches.

 
We urge the United States Government to offer the government of the People's Republic of Korea a guarantee,  embodied in a treaty ratified by the US Senate to become  the law of the land, that the United States will not invade the PRK, nor attack it, nor attempt to overthrow its government; that in exchange, the PRK will in stages to be negotiated reduce and eliminate its nuclear weapons in step with action by the US and the UN to reduce and eliminate sanctions against the PRK.

Internally, we urge that Congress pass legislation to forbid the first use of nuclear weapons by the United States; to reduce
the US nuclear arsenal to numbers that provide deterrence against nuclear attack, rather than a meaningless dominance in nuclear instruments of holocaust;  and to commit the US to a schedule for adherence to the Treaty abolishing nuclear weapons just adopted by the United Nations, in accordance with the adherence to that treaty by other nuclear or would-be nuclear powers. 
 
We invoke the ancient rabbinic midrash that Humankind may come to face not a Flood of Water but a Flood of Fire; that the Rainbow is the symbol of our own commitment to prevent a Flood of Fire; and that we are taught to “seek peace and pursue it” to remind us to pursue peace even if it seems to  be running away from us

We are the generation that stands
Between the fires:
Behind us the flame and smoke
that rose from Auschwitz and from Hiroshima
And from the burning of the Amazon forest;
Before us the nightmare of a Flood of Fire,
The flame and smoke that could consume all Earth.

It is our task to make from fire not fury,
Not an all-consuming blaze —  
But the light in which we see each other fully.
All of us different, All of us bearing
One Spark. 

We light these fires to see more clearly
That the Earth and all who live as part of it
Are not for burning.
We light these fires to see more clearly
The Rainbow in the many-colored faces of all life.
Blessed is the One within the many.
Blessed are the many who make One. 

[Light a Shabbat or Havdalah candle or a "Candle of Commitment."] 

Again,  we invite  any and all Rabbis and Cantors and other Jewish spiritual leaders to sign. We have set up an online page to receive these signatures.  The link is as follows: <https://theshalomcenter.org/civicrm/petition/sign?sid=20&reset=1>

To renew & restore Earth's climate as it was for our grandparents

Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on

Out of our eight years  of experience in working on the climate crisis, we are taking a new direction to heal the Earth from the ravages of global scorching.

In June, we called together a gathering of scientists and more than a dozen religious leaders from a wide variety of communities to explore this question:

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