The Associated’s Center for Funds and Foundations (CFF) held a briefing today on the state of environmental activism and programming in the Baltimore Jewish community. It was a remarkable moment,  demonstrating that greening is being woven into both our community’s deeds and identity. While we still have miles to go, this was a great boost. Many thanks go out to Mark Smolarz (CFO and COO of the Associated), Nancy Kutler and Lauren Klein of the CFF, as well as Ben Greenwald (past-chair of the Associated) and Ben Gershowitz (VP of Facilities), and many others who made this event possible. Over 45 people, both funders and staff, attended.

The panel of presenters included Ben Greenwald, who spoke about our desire to fund a Sustainability Officer to assist the community in its energy efficiency and conservation efforts; expand our rotating loan fund (more on this in a few weeks when we get our protocols in place); and the desired creation of a general Green Fund to support local greening projects of all sorts.

Jakir Manela, the farmer and creator of Kayam Farm, spoke about their successes and, as always, wowed and charmed the gathering.

Mollye Lipton, a senior at the Cardin School and a founder of JEYO (the Jewish Enviromental Youth Organization) spoke of their projects and desired goals.

I spoke briefly about BJEN.

The goal of the gathering was to find synergies and connections between funders and current and desired programs and initiatives. Time will tell how successful this introduction has been.

I also had the honor of delivering the devar torah to this august gathering. I attach it here:

“Yesterday [Yom Kippur], we spent a lot of time thinking about ourselves, even more to the point, thinking about our deeds: deeds of commission and deeds of omission; things we did that we shouldn’t have done and things we avoided that we should have done.

Yesterday was a reminder, an urging, for us to focus on the impact of our deeds.

Impulses are nice, intentions are good, desires are powerful, but it is the DEED that finally matters.

For after all is said and done, there is one question that we will all be held accountable for:    Did we, or did we not, do the right thing?

For 100 years or so, we have built an astonishingly vibrant economy utilizing the very best that nature and human ingenuity have to offer. We have taken what we wanted, used it up and tossed it aside, turned around and gotten some more.

Who knew, who believed, that we would run out of stuff so soon? Who knew that the air and sea could hold only so much trash? Who believed that our disposable, fossil-fueled society could so readily and quickly degrade our very large earth?

Who knew that our once innocent affluent lifestyle would put in peril the well-being of every creature on this earth, not only 100 years from now, or 50 years from now, but frighteningly right now?

Once, we could claim we did not know. But now we can’t, for we do know.  So now we must act. None of us wishes to impoverish or imperil our children and our children’s children through our own deeds of affluence, or indifference.

And while we may be rusty at this greening effort, living in harmony with the cycles and resources of the earth is not foreign to us. We lived it 3000 years ago. We were born into it as a people. We read about it in our Torah and speak of it in our daily prayers. It is time we reclaimed a name that we jettisoned and demeaned for the past 2000 years: the title of Am Ha’aretz, the people of the land.

Our tradition is of the land, we must return to it and preserve it.

There is a midrash about the story of Noah – and his failure to act to preserve his world. “When Noah came out of the ark, he opened his eyes and saw the whole world completely destroyed. He began crying for the world and said, God, how could you have done this? ... God replied, Oh Noah. when I told you I would destroy the entire world, I lingered and delayed, so that you would speak on its behalf. But when you knew you would be safe in the ark, you were content. You thought of no one but you and your family. And now you complain? Then Noah knew that he had sinned.” (Midrash Tankhuma, Parashat Noach).

We too are being warned. We too are being asked to cry out, and act. We have so little time and so much to do. We dare not keep silent. And we dare not keep still.