Welcome back to this second lecture in Judaism week two, where we're exploring nurturing and transforming a Judaism. We have used the concept of "nurturing" in these discussions of religion and ecology, to suggest that religions bring individuals and communities into sustaining relationships with nature. In Judaism, food is at the center of nurturing life, in such ritual moments as the Seder meal at passage Passover. We think here of the powerful and penetrating questions that are asked about identity and Judaism at this meal. So we find that probing and that enquiring in the context of nurturing, at the Seder meal and also it's sabbath meals and indeed in the kosher preparation and serving of food. Nurturing interactions in Jewish life are expressed in both symbolic and actual sources of nourishment, in which spiritual and physical means of sustenance are celebrated in rituals. In Judaism, these ancient ideals of nurturing, were embedded in very old ideas of covenantal law as enabling human completion of the imperfect natural world. These mutually enhancing views, in which God's created nature nourished humans and humans brought nature back to God. These flowed into Jewish mystical expressions of Kabbalah and Hasidism. These are religious symbol systems for deepening one's experience of the divine in Judaism. Jewish Mysticism or Kabbalah, is a complex development in Rabbinic Judaism, from its earliest centuries drawing on such biblical symbols as the throne of God, Merkabah Mysticism. And the transcendent journey to that throne. Here we see the vision of Ezekiel, in which the divine throne is imaged in relationship to these powerful mystical symbolic expressions. So, this sense of the journey to the throne becomes a major expression of early Kabbalistic thought. In Kabbalistic thought, there is an emphasis on ordinary everyday experiences that can be charged with this religious symbolism of a hidden true divine reality. In Kabbalah, this sacred dimension within the world is expressed symbolically in language. Thus language could become reality and reality could become a language for a spiritually nurturing experience of the divine. In Kabbalah, nature becomes a symbol of the divine, and experiences in nature become ritual modes for mystical encounters. Jewish Kabbalah, is a major form of mysticism, that transmitted knowledge of secret, esoteric teachings about the powers that God placed between himself and the created world. These ten powers, are called Sephirot. And they link, the created knowable world to the unknowable creator. Described in the text titled Zohar, this mystical thought about The Sephirot, combined aspects of the neo platonic great chain of being with gnostic esoteric teachings about self knowledge as liberating. Jewish ideas about the self limitation of God called were added to these teachings. So in effect, this created world is opened up by the self limiting of the divine into which created reality flows. In the two sides and center of this image then, we see imaged here the self limitation or drawing back of the divine radiance of God. It's seen as giving rise to creation, as well as to the self determination of healings. Thus, the teaching of allows for an understanding of evil and destruction and chaos, as an intentional drawing back of the divine, allowing for self determination. The right side of the Sephirot image, is seen as benevolence and blessing as said and is termed masculine, whereas the left side is power and strict justice and is termed feminine. In the center, are the principles of balance sought by all practitioners of Kabbalah Mysticism. Most importantly for our discussion, is the intuition in Kabbalistic thought, that inherent within creation is a divine spark, through which a practitioner can come to experience the divine within the world. Later, Kabbalistic thought, gave rise to the Hasidic movement in East European Judaism, from about the 18th century. It was through interest in Kabbalistic thought and later stories of the Hasidim, that environmental consciousness surged in Judaism, from the 1970s to the present. However, this mystical dimension of Judaism, has its own relationships with nature, that really differ from scientific ecology. That is, scientific ecology explores the energy flows and interdependence of organic and inorganic forms. Whereas, Kabbalah and Hasidim understood the divine spark in creatures, as a means for sacred passage from lower forms to the ultimate transcendent beyond nature. The surge of ecological affection, from the 1970s, associated with Kabbalistic and Hasidic thought and practice, is especially associated with the work and writings of Martin Buber and Abraham Heschel. As we have noted earlier, Martin Buber is justly famous for his introduction of the I-Thou phrase, as a means for expressing the potential for dialogic relationship between beings. Buber had also, had direct experience of Hasidic communities as a child. With his father then, he experienced the strong leadership of this Hasidic leaders, and they're exuberant community prayer and dance. Buber felt that the Hasidic tradition transmitted stories of ways in which these Hasidic Jewish masters interacted with the natural world. And with the force of either how relationships that is an unconditional love and felt presence of the divine intimately expressed in community. For Buber this intimacy of experience stood in sharp contrast to secular zionism as well as to the somewhat cold or distant theological doctrines. Simultaneously as seen in these wonderful images of Marc Chagall, Buber is credited with introducing stories of the Hasidic Masters in the 1970s. Just as environmental consciousness was surging, his recognition that Hasidic piety nurtured strong environmental dispositions that resonated throughout Judaism, especially among young jews. These stories tell of such Hasidic leaders as Baal Shem Tov and Rabbi Nachman of Breslov. Buber would, he would cite one story, especially of Baal Shem Tov, and in a moment when the Baal Shem Tov master was wandering. And it described this wandering, in which this master constantly asked individuals and communities how are things? Having come to a community with an aesthetic Rabbi who disdained all pleasure. Even for the study of Torah Baal Shem Tov continually asked him how he was. Finally, the aesthetic thundered, his anger at being disturbed, undaunted. The Hasidic Master spoke. We mortal beings subsist on the subsistence that God provides us in his great kindness. But what does God subsist on? On the praises of Israel, when one Jew asks another, how are things and his fellow responds by praising and thanking the Almighty, they are nourishing God deepening His involvement with His creation. This joy and praised in Hasidic teaching appealed to Buber especially because it extended into the created order. A Buber also promoted the teachings of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov and here we see his burial site in Breslov. Buber made Rabbi Nachman a much more widely known. This Hasidic master wrote in short aphoristic statements and told fairy tale like stories of that joy and simplicity of living in unconditional faith. Rabbi Nachman affirmed Torah study which was not always the case with hasidic teachers and he praised the virtues of being alone in the solitude of one's heart. Among his joyful statements that bring one into environmental consciousness is his prayer master of the universe, grant me the ability to be alone. May it be my custom to go outdoors each day among the trees and the grass, among all growing things. And there may I be alone to enter into prayer, there I may express all that is in my heart talking to you, the One to whom I belong. This emphasis on Hasidic thought as a source of renewing Judaism and ecological thinking was given signal emphasis in America through the work and writings of this teacher, Abraham Joshua Heschel. He was Buber's colleague in Germany and escaped the Nazi regime to the United States in 1944. He was himself trained both in an Hasidic lineage as well as educated at university. Much of his teaching was to assist those who had experienced the atrocities and traumas of the Holocaust in the 20th century. Heschel spoke of radical astonishment as the religious experience of wordless silence the inevitability of being in the presence of divine mystery. These experiences also moved Heschel to action both in terms of Jewish holocaust survivors as well as African American civil rights activism. He describes such actions saying to perform deeds of holiness is to absorb the holiness of deeds. His devotional style of philosophy and action was seen as a depth theology, critical of the expansive claims of environment, of enlightenment rationality. This critical view of the modern manipulation of the environment brought Heschel to his understanding of human earth relations. He wrote as we see pictures here in his book, Who is Man, are concerned with the environment cannot be reduced to what can be used and to what can be grasped. Environment includes not only the ink stand and the blotting paper, but also the Impenetrable stillness in the air, the stars, the clouds, the quiet passing of time, the wonder of my own being. I am an end as well as a means and so is the world and end as well as a means. My view of the world and my understanding of the self determine each other. The complete manipulation of the world results in the complete instrumentation instrumentalization of the self. This mutually enhancing human nature relationship became a touchstone for early Jewish environmentalism throughout the work of Martin Buber and Abraham Heschel. There is an emphasis on human humility in relationship to the natural world. Most importantly, for both of these thinkers, there was a clear understanding that the divine is simultaneously imminent and transcendent in relation to the world. We have use the concept of transforming in these discussions of religion and ecology to indicate ways in which religions bring the micro self of individuals and communities into intimate relations with a macro consciousness of the larger universe. Judaism has celebrated these understanding of transforming rites of passage, such as a girl's Bat mitzvah or a boy's Bar Mitzvah published here. Wonderful image that resonates with the past. And still locates us in any image of a young Jewish man becoming a boy coming of age. This can occur than this transforming moment in ordinary events of daily life. Such as the weekly sabbath rest or in the extraordinary passages of life's maturing and that marriage or death. Moreover, transforming in Judaism also brings us full circle to an appreciation and acceptance of change in the ways of orientation in the tradition. For example, Judaism has made significant advances. Exploring questions of the transcendence of God in traditional covenantal understandings. With scientific investigations of nature, emphasizing evolution. These significant explorations from within Judaism marked the work of disciples of Martin Buber and Abraham Heschel. Namely Arthur Green and Arthur Waskow, who along with Ellen Bernstein continued to bring Jewish communities, to environmental piety and action. Arthur Green reformulated both Kabbalah and Hasidism to a contemporary environmental demands. Green accomplishes this especially by blurring the separation in Judaism between creator and created. His adaptation of these mystical traditions, recognizes both the world and the Torah as God's self disclosure and as linguistic manifestations that require decoding. This act of translation is a singular contribution of the human who has been created in the image and likeness of God. Towards this understanding, Arthur Green wrote in his article a Kabbalah for the environmental age. Here, the language of Kabbalah may be useful again. These two tens, if you remember the 10 Sefirot the, 10 commandments and the utterances in the first chapter of Genesis. So the first these two tens, the utterances and the commandments. These are both versions of the 10 sefirot. Who's primal numbers, that allow us deeper entry into the secret of existence. We manifest that secret by turning outward and inward toward the outer world around us. And seeing it in all its awesome beauty and recognizing how deeply we are a part of all that is. We then ask in good Jewish fashion, what does this awareness demand of us. Here we have the beginning point of a new kaballah and a new halakhah path of religious practice, as well. Then this combination, the this praxis, one using and adapting the rich forms of Jewish tradition should be one that leads us to a life of harmony with the natural world and maximum concern for its preservation. This is marvelous statement. We see Green here delivering a transforming ethic of responsibility not simply to an abstract world. Rather, he proposes accountability to the particular charity of the world. The differences between and among the creatures. Thus, his ecological thought can be understood as defending habitat for the weakest of creatures. For those most threatened, he holds for an ethic that enhances life at the community level. Arthur Waskow a leader in the Jewish renewal movement is one of the most active religious environmentalists in the United States. His organization, the Shalom Center promotes a prophetic vision of transformation. With attention to the planetary climate crisis and the power configurations behind that crisis. He has creatively connected social justice concerns for the poor. And oppressed with eco justice understandings that social justice extends into the larger community of life. One of his creative ideas, ''eco kosher'' reaches into Judaism. Again, this idea of retrieving in the tradition. It's rethinking ancient traditions regarding food and transforming those practices in light of justice, concerns for local foods, ecological balance and new nutrition. Waskow asks, what if by eco kosher, we mean a broader sense of good practice in everyday life. That draws on the deeper wellsprings of Jewish wisdom and tradition about the relationships between human beings and the earth. Arthur Waskow 's imaginative adaptation of Jewish religious observances have connected sabbath practices, sabbath year, the Shemitah and jubilee, Yovel. To reflections on limits to consumption and endless economic production, harming all human and not human beings. In addition, Waskow's capacity to reach across religious divides, gives force to his insight. That ecological action provides the most effective ground for interreligious dialogue. Thus, the transforming vision that Arthur Waskow puts forward is one of response to a calling spirit. That comes out of our own times. A younger Jewish environmental activist, Ellen Bernstein, has founded Shomrei Adamah keepers of the earth. Which seeks to explore and aluminate the ecological routes of Jewish tradition, especially with regard to agriculture. Bernstein following many of the thinkers we have named here draws on the traditional festival Tu BiShvat the Jewish New Year of trees. The festival of trees. Concerning ecological awakening with the blooming and leafing of trees and the late winter and spring. This festival accords with Kabbalistic and Hasidic practices, as well as Zionistic agricultural celebrations in Israel. And indeed it, as this image suggests, orients us towards a sense in Jewish environmental concerns of the future. In these considerations and celebrations and Shomrei Adamah adapts different lineages in Judaism to contemporary environmental concerns. In her introduction to her book, Let the Earth Teach You Torah, Bernstein wrote, when the natural world is traumatized by the tears in the web of life, when the links within society and cultural systems are severed, things fall apart. In the Jewish idiom, this brokenness is referred to as shvirat ha keylim, shattering of the vessel. In the beginning, the world was one whole vessel. Then the vessel shattered into millions of pieces. It is our task to fix the vessel. This fine book is part of such a tikkun an act of fixing. It is an attempt to bring a sense of beauty to the study of the natural world and Jewish texts. It is the product of a dream in which science, religion, ethics, politics and history are bound up into one, just as all the creatures and elements are bound up into one. It is an effort to make a whole of parts that have too long been separated. Finally then, in conclusion, in reviewing movements in modern Judaism and ecology, we acknowledge the depth two traditions, the continuity of these traditions which change over time. We see their reinterpretation of scriptures by rabbis who are informed by the tradition and yet have a vision ahead. We see the activation of moral forces of change in the world. We can see the response of Judaism then to the environmental crisis through the lens of orienting to the divine grounding in the land. And as we see in these final remarks, nurturing in food and the mystical traditions in ritual celebrations and practices, and finally, in transforming through ethical turns and practices that bring us into relationship in Judaism to land and biodiversity.
