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Newsletter Issue 11 May 2000 Nisan 5760
In This Edition Education: Eco-Kashrut by Arthur Waskow Celebration: *Shavuot Event - 11th June A Song of Songs for Earth Day
Action: GM Seed Update Trans-Israel Highway Trans-USA Bike Ride Noah takes America GM Seed Action - UPDATE
Your action counts. Please help. Thank you to all of our supporters who joined us in writing to the government to express your concerns about the
proposals to include GM seeds on the National Seed Register. The government have now proposed that a GM maize seed, CHALLON LL be included on the register. Apart from the general concerns about GM food and its
effects on our Eco-systems, we have concerns in the context of Jewish ethical laws. The Noah Project has made official representations to the Ministry of Agriculture, and will be appearing before a public hearing
later this year. If you have any specific points you would like us to raise at the hearing, please contact us as soon as possible. Join us, and help us make a difference. 11th June 2000- Shavuot Green Belt Walk In Britain, we are fortunate in having green belts
around many of our major cities, but the demand for new housing (a recent government-commissioned report recommending 1.1 million new homes be built in the South East alone) means that our green belts are under threat.
The best way to show the planners how important our green belts are to our planet and our lives is to get out there, and use them. So join the Noah Project 11th JUNE 2000 in Barnet, North London, for a Celebration
of the Green Belt. We'll meet at 2.30pm at High Barnet Underground Station for a Nature Walk followed by a tea and talk. For more details see the enclosed flyer or contact us. Trans-Israel Highway Threatens Water The state of Israel - which celebrates
Independence day on 10th May, is a country rich in natural beauty. But its delicate Eco-system faces its greatest threat -the building of the trans-Israeli highway. Apart from the 'usual' road problems of air and
noise pollution, there are severe concerns about water pollution as residue from vehicles is washed into the vital water channels. It will also split communities, separating farmers from their land and the poor from
their essential services. The Noah Project are working on a campaign to stop this road, and we will be including a fuller report on this in our next newsletter. For now, why not write to Prime Minister Ehud Barak to
express your concern: FAX: 00972 2 566 4838 or E-MAIL: pm@pmo.gov.il The Song of Songs and Earth Day Earth Day, celebrated in the USA for 30 years, fell this year on 22nd April, the Shabbat during Pesach when we read 'Song of Songs'. Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg celebrates this
wonderful 'co-incidence'. What do we lose when we lose our involvement with nature? The Song of Songs, traditionally read on the Sabbath
in the middle of Pesach, describes a joyful and wondrous encounter with the world around us that takes place on every level of our being. The book is permeated with a sensuous delight in the land itself, in its
plants and animals, in their form and colour, in their motion and their scent. The fig tree, the apple tree and the vine, the nut tree and the lilies, - they are not merely seen but experienced. They give forth their
fragrance and are breathed into the very being. The doves, the foxes and the deer are observed, but not with a dispassionate eye. Their appearance and comportment herald the change of seasons and create our sense of
time, the passing of winter, the time to draw close, the time to flee away. Thus nature fashions the breadth and depth of our belonging in the world. Thus too the natural world is the context for the mysterious and
compelling love relationship which the book describes. 'Trace the tracks of the flock', the girl is told by her lover. 'He feeds among the lilies', says she of her beloved. 'Beneath the apple tree I aroused you', says
the girl. But the pastures and orchards and gardens are more than the setting of love. They provide more too than the imagery, intimate as it is, through which the lovers describe one another, eyes, hair, and all the
body. Their love is simply bound up in the bond of these places, these shapes and sights that describe it, the heap of wheat that is her belly, the fawns that are like her breasts. In the same way those places, those
hills and trees and flowers, are haunted by our love. Nor is nature part only of our personal story; it is the landscape out of which our people's story grows. The passionate belonging that a beloved landscape evokes
becomes part of the national memory whose images and legends are defined by its pools and fountains, beasts and birds. Like a horse among the chariots of Pharaoh, like the palanquin of Solomon made of the trees of
Lebanon, so the national story and the natural image interpenetrate in the web of association and response. So where we are becomes part of who we are in the consciousness of the group. Lastly, and most profoundly,
nature is the setting for our spiritual life. The Song of Songs is a work haunted by mystery and wonder. Just as its pathways lead us towards the human beloved, so they impel us towards the elusive presence of God.
Where precisely God is remains as inexplicit as the intimate encounter of love; both are ultimately 'a locked garden, a fountain sealed'. But the garden and the fountain are not only the haunt of desire but the
habitation of the spirit. All these bonds are expressed in the Song of Songs through the beauty of the Land of Israel. But every land has its beauty and every people has its poets, and the connections evoked are at
least similar if not the same. For all of us therefore, whoever we are, the loss if we destroy or neglect our environment is devastating. It is not a question of having no more pretty flowers anymore. We forfeit at once
our most intimate and our most profound identity, our physical, emotional and spiritual connection with life.
Ride to save the Earth American group, Hazon (Vision) is organising a sponsored Jewish Environ-mental Bike ride for 3,600 miles from
Seattle to Washington DC this summer. "Riders will learn and teach about Judaism and the environment along the route and will raise money for environmental causes, including The Noah Project, says organiser, British
ex-pat Nigel Savage. There are still places left - contact us and we'll put you in touch with Nigel. Noah Makes Headlines
The Jewish Chronicle and London Jewish News printed articles from The Noah Project in their Passover editions. As well as our visit to the
USA (see page 4) they printed our plea to the community to reduce reliance on disposable kitchen-wear and plates at Pesach. Look out for more articles of this type in future, as we go more high profile.
Noah Day - 4th Nov It may seem far ahead, but 4th November 2000
is a special day for the Noah Project. To celebrate the annual reading of the story of Noah, we are working with synagogues from across the Anglo-Jewish spectrum to make this a Jewish Environmental Shabbat. There
will be special sermons, Green pledges and lots more - but we will need your help to make this day a success, so please help us save the planet, this Noah Day. It's Kosher… but is it Eco-Kosher ? For more than 30 years, Rabbi Arthur Waskow has been
campaigning for the planet. For much of that time, he has developed the idea of Eco-Kosher. In this article, he outlines the principles behind this concept. Over thousands of years, Judaism has evolved a series of precepts intended to govern the Jewish community and to keep it in internal harmony and in harmony with other
peoples and the earth. Once in the emergence of the People Israel, and twice in its history since, profound changes in society have required changes in the content of these precepts in order to achieve a new harmony in
the new situation. One of those times… is now. Modernity has shattered the Jewish life that had become traditional. Modernity has liberated and empowered women, has brought distant cultures into close touch with each
other, and has created technologies that transform the very chemistry and biology of the earth, and threaten to bring about a mass death of many species. Under these conditions, we must re-examine the content of the
precepts that sought for harmony under old conditions, while drawing on the wisdom of the entire Jewish past in order to shape the new content. Part of that ancient wisdom was the code of eating kosher food -- in
which only the meat of non-predatory animals and birds was kosher to eat. In the midst of the triumph of Modernity, the wisdom of this Rabbinic pattern of kosher eating was questioned by many Jews, for whom it had lost
connection with the real issues of relationship between humans and the earth. Today we must ask ourselves a broader question: Whether we are Jews who adhere to a kosher eating-path or not, is it food alone that is
subject to the precepts of a kosher life-path? If we wish to protect the earth, then today we must explore a broader set of questions about what might be considered "eco-kosher" life. Are tomatoes that have
been grown by drenching the earth in pesticides "eco-kosher" to eat at a wedding reception? Is newsprint that has been made by chopping down an ancient and irreplaceable forest "eco-kosher" to use
for a newspaper? Is a bank that invests the depositors' money in an oil company that befouls the ocean an "eco-kosher" place to deposit money? If by "kosher" we mean a broader sense of "good
practice" that draws on the deep well-springs of Jewish wisdom and tradition about protecting the earth -- then none of these ways of behaving is eco-kosher. For the sake of our children and our children's
children, it is crucial to address the issues. And the Jewish people has its own wisdom on these matters, rooted in our own ancient tradition of ourselves as a pastoral and agricultural people that nourished the earth,
as well as in our modern efforts to nurture the Land of Israel. So it may be of value to the human race to examine and draw on this sense of sacred practicality. The Torah (Lev 26) teaches that if we deny the earth
its Shabbats, the earth will make Shabbat anyway - through desolation. The earth does get to rest. Our only choice is whether the rest occurs with joy or disaster. The earth and the human race are now faced with such a
moment, of Shabbat denied. Triumphant human technology, runs amok without Shabbat, bringing the danger of impending desolation. However, the Torah teaches not that we abandon technology but that we constrain it with
Shabbat and all the implications of Shabbat. Instead, we have used technological progress to poison the earth and air and water, so that they poison us with cancer at the very moment when we take in their nourishment.
Our technology has also transformed the medium of the relationship between earth and human earthling. Originally, food was the great connection. But that is no longer so. The human race has created an economy in which
energy, minerals, and money take on many of the roles that land and food originally had. That is why an eco-kosher approach to life requires us to look beyond food to such other consumable items as wood, oil, and
aluminium, and to where and how we save and invest our money. And the new conditions of the planet may also point toward changes in the content of precepts outside the arena of kosher or eco-kosher consuming of goods
from the earth. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This article has been edited for space. Please contact us if you would like the full article. Waskow is director of The Shalom Center ( www.shalomctr.org),. This article is Copyright (c) 2000 by Arthur Waskow, and is reprinted with the author's permission. All rights reserved. Noah takes America by Vivienne Cato and John Schlackman Imagine a world where everyone you
meet is both a committed environmentalist and a committed Jew. Now add in the Californian sunshine and ocean-side mountains, and you will start to experience the warm welcome we received at the fourth annual institute
of our American sister organisation, the Coalition of the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL), held at the Shalom Nature Centre, Malibu, California, from March 30th to April 2nd. Founded in 1993 COEJL has grown from
a small national office into a grassroots movement with twelve affiliates across North America. Through a network of regional affiliates, COEJL activists are engaging thousands of synagogues, schools and other Jewish
institutions, and tens of thousands of Jews in addressing local environmental challenges–from protecting open space and reducing air pollution to building environmental justice coalitions and supporting urban
forestation. The institute programme included discussions on "The Promise of Jewish Environmentalism," "Urban Ecology," "Environmental Health," "Climate Change," and "The Future of Food." Intensive skills-building
seminars were offered in "Jewish Ritual and Political Action," "Community Organising," "Community Ecology," and "Jewish Environmental Education." And Shabbat was observed through both traditional and non-traditional
services as well as Shabbat walks consisting of hiking, meditation, prayer, and singing. All of the other 170 participants were from North America (including two British ex-pats), but the flow of ideas was very much
two-way, as we outlined our initiatives such as 'Omer for The Earth' and our successful Nature Walks and Tu B'Shevat Seders. Aaron Katler from the group Endangered Spirit used the text of story of Ruth to teach
leadership skills, highlighting the different leadership skills shown by each of the characters. Amongst the more unusual sessions were those taken by Gabe Goldman of the Jewish Nature Centre, New Jersey, who showed
how we could use Jewish meditation techniques to heal nature. He gave the example of a forest which had been infected with disease. By applying meditation to harness white light from The Almighty towards one particular
tree, the disease stopped spreading in that tree. Perhaps what sets this application of Jewish meditation apart from, say, Eastern meditation is that we are applying no power of our own - merely acting as a channel for
G-d's mystical energy. As is so often the case, the memories which stick most in our minds were the un-scheduled ones. You have to spend Shabbat afternoon clambering down cliffs to gushing waterfalls surrounded by
cactus, and to hear there, the Shema being cried out as the sun sets over the distant Ocean to really experience what being 'at one with nature' is all about. It has been a wonderful learning experience for us,
opening our eyes to what can be achieved when Judaism and the environment come together, and has truly inspired us to build on what we have already achieved in the UK. This enthusiasm is best summarised by institute
participant Stephan Sylvan from Michigan."This movement makes Judaism alive for me", said Stephan. "Before it was just a bunch of strange words, rituals, and buildings. Now it's something so deep I can't even describe
it. It moves me right to the core of my being. The more I get involved with this part of Judaism, the more I think that this is going to save both Judaism and the environment at the same time. What could be better than
that." ---------------------------------- The next institute will be 22nd - 26th February 2001 near Washington DC. If you would like more details, please contact The Noah Project and we'll put you in touch with
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