A few weeks ago, just before Rosh Hashanah, I had the honor of addressing a gathering in Tacoma on the subject of climate change, and the intersection between the environment and social justice. It was part of a worldwide day of rallies and marches in support of “climate, jobs and justice.” I spoke from my perspective as a person of faith to a hearty crowd of perhaps a few hundred. I do that quite often these days, and with great love.
Since this event was so close to Rosh Hashanah, it got me thinking seriously about how specifically our High Holiday season speaks to the central question of how we live on Earth now, in the early decades of the 21st Century, as the Earth transforms before our eyes as a result of relentlessly rising temperatures caused by the ever-thickening blanket of fossil fuel exhaust in our atmosphere, and the removal of the great forests that breathe it, cool it, and return oxygen. The Days of Awe must surely have something to say to us about this urgent crisis.
But I had a strong urge to open with the Hasidic tale of the Splendid Bird. I wanted to explain my interpretation of it. I didn’t have much time, and didn’t know my audience, so I boiled the story down to this observation: we live in a time of tremendous potential for holiness. We are facing a crisis of global proportion that will affect every person in the world as well as every non human being, truly the breath of all life. Never before has the need for us to get to know one another and to learn from one another, and to work together for a common sacred purpose been so great. Furthermore, none of us can solve this crisis alone. We are all called upon to respond in community. I cannot think of anything that is more spiritually bracing than this realization. That’s how I opened.
In the story of The Splendid Bird, we are told that a bird, more beautiful than any ever seen, has been sighted at the top of the tallest tree. The bird is so high that no person could ever hope to reach it on their own. Word of the bird has reached the king. The king has ordered that the bird be brought to him. The people are to stand on one another’s shoulders until the highest of them can reach it. But while they are standing, with people balanced on the shoulders of the ones below them, someone near the bottom wanders off. As soon as this first person moved, the chain above collapsed, injuring several of the people. The bird remained uncaptured. The people, we are told, had doubly failed the king. “For even greater than his desire to see the bird had been his wish to see his people so closely joined to one another.”
- Rabbi Uri Feivel of Krystnopol, or Or HaHokhmah
This story is widely interpreted as referring to the power of prayer, and particularly the need for a community of prayer to draw humankind near to the Divine. However, to me the story poses the tantalizing question: what if there is an underlying purpose to this crisis that we are facing? What if our goal is the bird – saving our beautiful planet, but God’s goal is not the bird. What if the true challenge of this moment from God’s perspective is that we should forge new bonds of love, respect, care, and mutual responsibility across all the world’s cultures? Incidentally, we may save the world and capture the splendid bird we are looking at, but on a deeper level, we will transform our relationships and bring about a new age of mutual care, understanding, freedom from exploitation, and reciprocity of love.
So, returning to the question of the High Holidays: what specifically do they have to offer us as a community confronting this crisis?
In the Jewish tradition, the Days of Awe – the High Holy Days – begin with a celebration of the Act of Creation – the Birthday of the World – we call it Rosh Hashanah, the head of the year. We also call it “the Day of the Shofar Blast,” and “the Day of Remembrance.” The shofar blast is meant to wake us up from spiritual slumber; to pierce our consciousness.
Remembrance. Now that is an interesting one. On this day God remembers all of God’s creatures. Each creature is recalled by the Creator, who remembers whether it has lived up to its responsibilities. This imagery is extremely evocative for me, since it reminds me that it is not just human beings that God cares about. Each creature has its purpose, and God is intimately concerned with the welfare of all of life.
Also, memory is stored in the Earth. It’s where fossils reside. It is where we look to find signs of things past. The Earth itself contains the record of our deeds – it is memory itself. Yom HaZikaron, indeed! Our crimes are recorded in the Earth, and persist there, as well as the blessings we have brought about.
Between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur we account for the state of our souls within our community. We use this time to reflect deeply on the harm we have caused in the past year. We must openly apologize for it, seek to correct the damage to the best of our ability, and resolve to set a new course in the coming year. Then, when Yom Kippur arrives, we hope that any sense of separation, the pebbles of mis-steps in the gears that connect us with the Divine source of life, will be removed, and we will experience “atonement” – literally At One-ment, with Divine intention.
So I ask: can we take the occasion of the High Holidays to experience this season as a time to review our past year from the standpoint of how we have behaved as fellow creatures living among others on the Earth? Can we take this occasion to assess the health of our natural community, specifically the ecosystems which we are a part of, and take clear eyed stock of them through deepened awareness? For instance, reflecting on how our brethren, the Southern Resident Killer Whales are doing? Then can we reflect on our injuries to them, and adjust our behaviors to bring about an increase in their wellbeing in the coming year?
Can we enact our changes lovingly but also urgently, and with the resolve we would show if we knew that our very lives and souls depended on it, as we are asked to do during the these Days of Awe? And as they in fact do? What if we Jews suddenly did this, and took it as seriously as fasting and atoning in our personal lives? Before we fast, and don canvas shoes with our white clothes, have we asked if the world outside is suffering?
This is one way that we can interpret our Jewish traditions and practices in light of the crisis of the present day, and I would argue that we need to do this at a very deep and consistent level. We need to reflect on a set of ecological and communal “thou shalts” and “thou shalt nots” that will guide our relationship with the natural world going forward. We need to establish a community that will hold each other accountable to upholding these values. That will celebrate together, notice together, raise children together, sing songs together, share meals together.
We all know that there are Jews who would not eat certain foods unless they were literally at the point of starvation. Can we become a community that holds such sacred attachment to ethical behaviors that might save Creation? I put it forward that this is exactly the purpose of religion itself. It is exactly what we must do. It is exactly the only thing that can build the world with chesed going forward.
My call to each of us in the coming year is do this: find your group – your community – your tribe – and make it real. Discuss what is important to you, your values. Then start to build new traditions, or infuse old ones with new energy and significance. Draw up your own commandments – a list of behaviors that you must do, or aspire to, and a list of behaviors that you have collectively decided you will no longer do. Celebrate the beauty and abundance of the world you love!
Together we can and must change the culture by building the next culture right where we stand, right here and right now.
In closing, I offered the group this prayer:
“God and God of our Ancestors, and also, as I have learned to remember from listening to my brothers and sisters, the Indigenous men and women whom I have been honored to share these spaces with in the past: God of our children, and of our grandchildren, and of our great grandchildren:
“May this moment be the beginning for each of us of a life dedicated to establishing holy roots in your beloved earth, the sacred home of all life; a year dedicated to learning to live with wholeness, with peace, with justice, with shalom; a year in which we infuse every action with love; a year in which we dedicate ourselves with renewed commitment to nourishing and caring for, restoring, and protecting this beloved place that we call home.
“And let us say, Amen.”
L’Shana Tova