FEATURED JOBS
Comments (8)The annual Maryland Legislative Environmental Summit was held yesterday in Annapolis. Hundreds of people, really, a lot, (I’m waiting for the official count) packed into the Miller Senate Building to hear activists, elected officials, and me (!) make brief (5 minute) talks as this year’s legislative session kicks off. It was an honor to be a voice from “the faith community” speaking to such an august and passionate crowd, a group of people who work so hard on behalf of all of us. There is much to do, what with issues such as wind energy, water quality, a bag bill, and more. To keep abreast of issues, you can always check the Maryland League of Conservation Voters site. Or better yet, become one of their members and get updates sent to you. I attach my presentation below, fyi: We… read more
BLOGS
MD Legislative Summit
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 01/25/12 at 02:58 PM
Seeds
In Genesis 1, on the sixth day, God creates man and woman after having created all the rest of Planet Earth. In a gracious effort to provide some guidance, some instruction to these bewildered, befuddled neophytes on how this novelty of life could possibly work, God says, “Look around. All this grandeur is there for you.” 28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” “All this is at your disposal. But, and this is a huge But, you have to learn how to use it well so you don’t mess things up. (I am paraphrasing from the midrash here.) “Let’s begin with the basics. … read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 01/06/12 at 09:59 AM
Perfection and Contentment
While the philosophers and rabbis of old lost themselves in labyrinths of logic like: “Can we have free will if there is an All-Knowing God,” mothers of old (or so I imagine) struggled with the very real question: “How can I raise my child to reach for excellence but be content with their best?” That is, how can we, how do we, hold together two sides of an irreconcilable coin: actively seeking perfection and being content with less? How do we avoid feeling like failures, like we are living lesser lives, when we come up short? How do we not give up, slump in our chairs, be washed in despair, and set our sights lower next time so we are not so disappointed again? This is hardly an idle question. It is one we must all grapple with throughout… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 12/27/11 at 11:35 AM
Lessons from the Darkness
We are deep into the season’s darkness, hurtling toward the shortest day of the year. Our days will continue to shorten and our nights will continue to lengthen until the welcome solstice (Thursday, December 22, 2011 at 12:30 AM here in Baltimore). Then, the sun will cease its southern recession, pause and begin its northern trek again. On that day, night in Baltimore will last 14 hours, 35 minutes and 59 seconds. That is way too much darkness. My interfaith study group has begun delving into the nature of night, as found in the Bible. We imagined that we moderns could not begin to know the full experience of night (how it could evoke awe, depth, terrors, thickness, cover, refuge) as did those who lived before the easy flip of a switch. Our experience of darkness and our fabulously… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 12/16/11 at 08:45 AM
Desire
(This is my column, written for the Bay Journal News Service, that appeared in the Baltimore Sun earlier this week:) Ever since Adam and Eve took a bite of the apple, we have been haunted by Desire, that shape-shifting seducer who promises us beauty, understanding and fulfillment if only we chase after More. On the one hand, that is a blessing. We would still be clumsy, clueless creatures huddling in caves — or naked in the Garden — without it. Desire and appetite drive our ambition, fire our curiosity and lead us to discover in ways that complacency and fullness never can. It is Desire that propels culture forward, urging us to explore, to dare, to persevere so we may uncover all the wisdom, comforts and delights that make life grand. It is Desire that gives rise to the… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 12/15/11 at 06:35 AM
Cisterns or Trees
There is a wonderful teaching in the Jerusalem Talmud which reads: “Rabbi Yohanan, speaking on behalf of Rabbi Yossi, says: ‘Just as they (the other rabbis) believe that civilization depends on cisterns, so I believe that civilization depends on trees.’” The work of blending civilization and nature has always been a challenge. In this “man vs nature” tug of war, we must ask, who wins? What has precedence over what; what should yield to what? Gray infrastructures - the built environment of houses, streets, marketplaces, and water systems are often seen as more essential than Green infrastructure - trees, wetlands, swales, hills, bees, bats and more. (Think cutting down 40-year-old trees to make way for a 3-day Grand Prix.) Nature is seen as either plentiful or wild, or otherwise able to be pushed around and manipulated and superseded by… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 12/13/11 at 06:46 AM
Filthy Banking
You would hardly know that in Durban, many of 194 party members of the United Nations Framework for Climate Change are meeting for the 17th COP (Conference of the Parties) to continue to explore how to save the planet from itself. This is the group that brought us the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 which sought to limit the amount of greenhouse gases the world emits. The UNFCCC has posted videos of key presentations and links to various reports. And more are coming. In concert with this annual event, four environmentally-concerned organizations have issued their own Bankrolling Climate Change report, which studies the coal-heavy investments of many of the world’s leading banking institutions. Truth be told, it makes only the tiniest difference if your bank says it is “green” as it saves millions of pieces of paper (and millions of… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 12/06/11 at 07:00 AM
Wealth and Worth
The Maryland Chapter of the American Jewish Congress is developing a Green and Just Celebrations Guide for the Jewish community of Baltimore. Inspired by a guide of the same name published by Jews United for Justice in Washington, DC, it will be available (fall 2012) through synagogues and on the web, designed to make events and celebrations environmentally friendly, socially responsible, affordable and fun. This is not the first time in Jewish history that the Jewish community has tried to wrestle with excessive and indulgent celebrations. “Sumptuary Laws” (provisions that sought to control extravagant personal spending and consumption) popped up over the centuries. From Rabban Gamaliel 2000 years ago (who sought to take the financial sting out of funerals, making them simpler and more affordable for the 99%) to the Rhine community in the 13th century to the Frankfort… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 12/02/11 at 08:10 AM
Erev Thanksgiving
I love Thanksgiving, perhaps because it is so different from Judaism’s standard, classical, biblical holidays. All our pilgrimage holidays, for example, happen away from home, toward home, longing for home. They teach us how to create a sense of place, of pride, of belonging in the midst of wandering and dislocation. They teach us how to be centered in mobility; how to weave stories into platforms of place; how to celebrate “here” when that is all we have. What they don’t speak of, given our long history of exile and exclusion, is the celebration of home. Understandably. Passover is about leaving a home of horrors, shedding a past and journeying to a better tomorrow while in the midst of a volatile, meandering road to Home. Sukkot is about accepting the security of in-betweenness. Neither in Egypt nor Israel, at… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 11/20/11 at 02:26 PM
The shared nature of nature
In the mid-19th century, Calvert Vaux created the iconic images of the American urban landscape, including the grounds at the White House, the Smithsonian Institute and (with his newly hired young recruit, Frederick Law Olmsted) Central Park. Though Vaux started in landscape design, he later moved into designing buildings and homes that would occupy these landscapes. A populist of sorts, he believed that access to natural beauty was a right shared by all. And that natural beauty should not be marred by ugly architecture or blocked by aggressive private ownership. In his classic book entitled Villas and cottages: a series of designs prepared for execution in the US, 1857, Vaux makes available to the general public (at least those of a certain means) drawings for what he believes are attractive houses that can appropriately grace various natural settings and… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 11/17/11 at 11:57 AM
Do something about fracking
I recently purchased and viewed Gasland. It is a documentary exploring the hazards that come in the wake of hydraulic fracturing (aka, fracking) to loose natural gas from pockets within shale formations around the country. One of those formations is Marcellus Shale. It covers nine states, including most of West Virginia, half of Ohio and Pennsylvania, large chunks of New York, Kentucky, Tennessee and just nipping the very western tips of Maryland and Virginia and northern Alabama. It is huge, the biggest shale region in the United States. And it is in the cross-hairs of the big gas companies. The problem is that extracting this gas through fracking causes alarming and irreparable destruction to the land, water, air, animals, land values, crops and, of course, people. Oh, and it might be the cause of earthquakes that are beginning to… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 11/14/11 at 05:42 AM
Return on Luck
If ever there were a time for the faith community to raise its voice about what we are doing to the environment, how we conduct business, and the mean-spirited incapacity of the government, now is the time. In their new book, Great by Choice, Jim Collins and Morten Hansen, investigate how some of the most successful companies in the world got that way. They tested the belief that timing and luck were large players in success. Their conclusion: not luck but seizing the moment that luck provided was the key. Everyone experiences both good luck and bad luck, they argue. The question is: do you squander it or ride it? get flattened by it or renewed by it? They call the bump after the luck: Return on Luck. So, consider this: The world-wide environment is in a most… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 10/31/11 at 07:50 AM
Questions
Economist Tim Jackson, in a Ted Talk, offered the following “koan” of sorts: We are people being persuaded to spend money we don’t have on things we don’t need to create impressions that won’t last on people we don’t care about. This is one version of the modern story of consumption that helps explain how we got in our current mess. Like all bold statements it is not entirely true. And yet, it is true enough. The challenges we face are enormous, and the questions they raise equally so: 1) How do we resist the seduction of the marketplace, of allowing “want” to morph into “need”? 2) What is the difference between appetite and hunger? That is, how do we know when “want” becomes “need”, and when not? When is “too much”? 3) Yet, if we stop buying, what… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 10/28/11 at 08:06 AM
The lessons of fall
When we lived in the northern hinterlands of New Jersey (in what now seems lifetimes ago), we knew that summer had arrived when Gene, our gentle next-door neighbor, opened up his above-ground pool. He would clean and remove the leaf-laden cover, wash off the sides, and unshock the water. (I don’t even want to know the chemical composition of the water, after a decade or more of being shocked and unshocked, shocked and unshocked. Though it did save thousands of gallons of water!) If he did this on a weekend, we all would have the pleasure of seeing fall, winter and spring peeled away, layer by layer. If on a weekday, we would come home - greeted by this long hoped-for sign of summer. We all need these signature moments, these small acts that help us set down markers… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 10/23/11 at 09:55 AM
Green Eggs and Us
We can learn a lot from Dr. Seuss, or a local CSA, or a child’s coloring book. That is: there’s a lot more variety in the world than we think. Not all carrots are orange; not all potatoes are white; not all watermelons are red; not all bananas are yellow. According to Plants for a Future, there are 20,000 edible plants in the world today. Yet, fewer than 20 species supply 90% of what the world eats. It seems that in our rush to be food efficient, we have stripped the grand diversity of nature down to a narrow, pre-digested list and thus suffer the illusion of good-world sameness which leads us to question difference. I will explain. Food limits lead to three deficits, it seems to me. 1) We are being deprived of many delightful and fascinating food… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 10/18/11 at 10:38 AM
The Gardens of Antwerp
This is the city of Antwerp, circa 1572. It was one of the most cosmopolitan, creative, commercial cities of the 16th century, and home of some of the era’s most impressive engravers and printers. I found this particular map in a charming book called Imagined Corners: exploring the world’s first atlas. It offers a treatment of the political, social, economic, religious, intellectual and cultural trends that gave rise to this new format - a unified, portable, bound collection of maps of the entire known world. This “atlas” (the term would not be coined til a few years later by Mercator) was called Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (Theater of the Countries of the World), created by Abraham Ortel, and it was a runaway best-seller. (Yes, now you know, I am one of those folks who loves maps, especially old maps, and… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 10/16/11 at 03:31 PM
Wangari Maathai and a billion trees
In the run-up to the New Year, a bit of news may have escaped noticed: “Wangari Muta Maathai died on September 25 (1940–2011). She was a Nobel Peace Laureate; environmentalist; scientist; parliamentarian; founder of the Green Belt Movement; advocate for social justice, human rights, and democracy; elder; and peacemaker. She lived and worked in Nairobi, Kenya.” Her pioneering work, her unquenchable pursuit of justice, her unending optimism inspired millions around the world. She died at a time heavy with meaning in the Jewish tradition. This week and next, during our Yamim Noraim, these Days of Awe, we celebrate the creation of the world, circle back to the freshness and promise when all was new, when both we and the world were young. Every year, no matter the disappointments or losses or frustrations we knew, our tradition infuses us with… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 10/03/11 at 08:15 AM
Not turtles all the way down?
When the rabbis-of-old mused about the nature of the universe, their telescope was the Tanakh (the Bible), their philosophical society the pathways of Yavneh and Babylon. Without advanced technology, with no peering devices beyond their own eyes, they used the latest - which is to say the earliest - source of knowledge they had, the texts of their tradition. They asked: “On what does the earth rest? How does it stay up, stay put, stay stable? What supports it?” (Even framing the question was a leap of faith, what with the physics of globes and planets and space and gravity being such a grand mystery. Which it remains today, even with all we know.) For answers they turned to the words in the Bible. “The world rests on its pillars,” they answered, “for it says: ‘God shakes the earth… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 09/27/11 at 06:15 AM
Nature’s answers
Janine Benyus is widely known for her pioneering work promoting biomimicry, that is, answering our technological needs by mimicking nature’s ways. Nowadays, industry makes things by “heating, beating and treating.” Which may get the job done but often leaves destructive residues, gobbles up enormous amounts of financial and energy resources and only gets us half-way there. Nature, on the other hand, has been field-testing the best ways to build things, dissolve things, grow things, arrest growth, and altogether thrive in the most efficient and enduring ways. If we can conduct our industry in ways that are cheaper, enduring and better, why wouldn’t we? That is the promise of biomimicry. As Benyus says, “Learning about the natural world is one thing, learning from the natural world… that’s the switch.” Brew a cup of tea, sit on a comfy chair and… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 09/21/11 at 01:25 PM
Water Maps
The oldest “to-scale” map in the world is of the city of Nippur on the Euphrates some 3500 years ago. What is so remarkable about the map (to us moderns) is that its most prominent feature is its watercourses. (Ignoring of course the crack that time - not the mapmaker - put there.) The view (drawn from a vantage point found only through the mapmaker’s imagination) shows the rivers and canals that gave life to the city. The city walls complement and punctuate the prominence of the water. Which made me think about a peculiar law of the Jewish divorce document (called a get). In the text of a get, one must note the location of the proceedings by city name and the nearest watercourse (and the presence of local wells!). “On the _ day… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 09/16/11 at 07:16 AM
A thing of beauty
An enterprising man in a white pick-up truck came to the house yesterday, lured no doubt by the state of our driveway. He was not the first. Trolling for work in these difficult times, such eager workmen drive around neighborhoods like mine checking out the state of people’s driveways. They knock on your doors, tuck rolled-up brochures under your handles and otherwise find ways to tell you about their driveway repair services. No doubt he saw our driveway (yup, that’s ours pictured above) and began licking his chops. To all the world, our driveway is a mess, as cracked and sun-baked as an iguana in a tanning salon. But beauty is in the eye of the beholder. To us, the driveway is just beginning its lovely ascent into permeability. The world is full of hard, rain-resistant, impermeable surfaces. Which… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 09/15/11 at 07:45 AM
Ten
The fifth chapter of Pirkei Avot, the Ethics of the Fathers, begins with a celebration of the number ten. It recounts how the world was created with ten utterances; what ten things were created just after creation; how there were the ten miracles in Egypt and ten at the Red Sea; ten generations for one historic era and ten generations for another. But my favorite celebration is the ten miracles that occurred at the Temple in Jerusalem - every day and at every pilgrimage holiday, when the city was bustling and bursting with pilgrims. The mishnah lists them, ticking them off one by one (click here for the whole text): no woman ever miscarried from the smell of the sacrifices no flies were seen in the slaughterhouse the smoke from the altar never got in anyone’s… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 09/11/11 at 07:16 AM
Alienature - the alienation of people from the natural world
It all began when we caged electricity. This miraculous taming of God’s fierce fire; the channeling, damming and undamming of the stuff that drives the pulse of the universe and every creature’s heart. Our slow, sad alienation from nature all began when we put those ions on the end of a leash. The power we have harvested removes from us the awareness of the every day life. We forget the precious heaviness of water. We are blind to the ebb and flow of day’s light and darkness. Our spaces are filled with noise that drowns out the rustling, twittering, chattering and stillness of earth. This is not a lament against progress. We know what our lives would be without electricity and we have chosen well. But we still must acknowledge the collateral damage that has come with such a… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 09/01/11 at 02:54 PM
Before the Storm
Spiral galaxies and earth-bound hurricanes bear a striking resemblance one to the other. Forces of life and forces of destruction. But one is so very far away and the other is barreling down upon us. May you all stay safe in Irene’s blustery arms this weekend, and through the possible disruptions in her aftermath. Remember to look after your neighbors. And in the midst of the wind and rain, may we still be blessed with Shabbat Shalom. read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/26/11 at 04:05 AM
The Thin Thread of Conversation
Peter Berger, the sociologist, wrote: “The reality of the social world hangs on the thin thread of conversation.” One-on-one and nation-to-nation we measure each other, judge each other and choose to abide with each other (or not) by how we speak to and about each other. Conversation is more than what we casually do just between us. Our words grow wings, and can jet around the world at the speed of sound. (Or if we are using fiber optics, at the speed of light.) It is like the famous Norman Rockwell painting of gossiping. Only today, such conversation is aided by the instantaneous conveniences of twitter, facebook, and the dozens of other feeds that constantly keep us connected, whether we are happy about it or not. That in and of itself is enough to tempt some of us to… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/22/11 at 09:55 AM
On the Genesee River
By a bend in the Genesee River, fast along the eastern shore, right about where the massive Hutchison Building of the University of Rochester stands today, an Algonquin tribe once thrived. They built homes from the forest’s abundant tree bark and farmed the rich soil. They occupied about 9 acres there. They created the foot paths (and followed the animal trails) that became the city’s major roads. They plied the rushing waters of the river when it was not yet tamed. It is believed that the area around the Genesee has been inhabited for thousands of years. I thought about this tumbling re-use of land over the centuries, the chain of generations that benefited from it, and the landed legacy we inherit - and are destined to pass on - as I shuttled my son from home to dorm.… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/21/11 at 09:45 AM
Tree Serpent
A 20-foot branch came crashing through our ceiling the other night. It was raining a lot and a bit breezy. I can only imagine that the branch must have been compromised in some way and with the additional heft of the water absorbed, it was just too much to continue holding on. So it let go. I can imagine if I were hovering above a roof for years on end and finally had a chance to take a peek at what was happening underneath, I might go for it as well. It is what we do as kids, lifting up rocks and stepping stones and rotting logs to see the life scurrying around underneath. So it seemed with this branch. A bit invasive and a tad out-of-place. But exhibiting life’s urgent and essential curiosity. And then the more we… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/18/11 at 08:24 AM
Regard
My brother and I were at it again, arguing over the power of money as the prime motivator of the human spirit. Maximizing one’s profits, whether through the stock market, the board room, career choice or the hording of one’s own possessions is what drives most people, so says my brother. We were talking about the wisdom (according to my brother) or greed (according to me) of one of my neighbors who is selling his property in such a way that will maximize his take but diminish the aesthetics of the neighborhood. He has chosen to thumb his nose at the neighbors he is leaving behind and destroy one of the very attractions that lured him to this street years ago. Why, I wonder. On the surface it appears that the answer is “money.” So while my brother can… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/14/11 at 06:14 PM
Curbside Composting
After a five month pilot program this past fall, Howard County is expanding its curbside compost pick-up program in Elkridge and Ellicott City. Food makes up 14% of what goes into our nation’s landfills. Food composting should save the county the cost of trash-removal, earn the county money (the nutrient-rich soil that is created from our kitchen and lawn scraps is black gold), and save precious space in rapidly filling landfills (which also translates into money). Curbside composting is coming to us all. It is simply a matter of when. My generation grew up with trash collection. My children grew up with trash collection and recycling. My grandchildren will grow up with trash collecting, recycling and composting. But even better, as a 20-something said to me the other day, my great-grandchildren may grow with no trash collection at all… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/09/11 at 04:15 PM
Where was the business community?
Where was the business community while the debt ceiling debate was going on? Why weren’t they piling into Washington with grim faces and falling charts showing Congress what was likely to happen if America continued make a spectacle of itself, looking to all the world like the Osbournes had taken over the Capital? Why are corporate lobbyists’ fingers only on the speed dial buttons when fighting for corporate welfare but not for the welfare of the nation? Don’t they realize that their corporate welfare is dependent on the welfare of the nation, and the welfare of the nation is dependent on the middle class. If the middle class tanks, the wealthy tank too. That is what the mortgage debacle should have taught them. (Government bailouts won’t come with every crisis.) It is the consumer that drives the economy. 70-80%… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/08/11 at 02:57 AM
The beauty of natural lawns
The Chesapeake Bay is not doing well. According to the Chesapeake Bay Trust: One third of the Chesapeake Bay is currently in what biologists call a “dead zone.” A dead zone occurs when too many nutrients, mostly from over-fertilized areas, flow into the Bay after rainstorms, causing algae to grow excessively. When the algae die, they suck oxygen out of the water and cause major trouble for Bay critters. Crabs and fish have to move if they are to survive, while already vulnerable oysters stand little chance of surviving. There are two main solutions to this dilemma: use less fertilizer and send less nutrient-filled water to the bay. Many of us can help in both these areas in our very homes. Turf grass (ie, what most of our lawns are made of) is Maryland’s single largest “crop” and… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/03/11 at 10:06 AM
The Canvas of Earth
In the caves and covered places of the Lower Pecos, on the northern banks of the Rio Grande, grand shamans spread their arms above ghostly congregations, sprout feathers, fur, fangs, and talons, and stretch exorbitantly across great canvases of rock. Some have held their poses for 5,000 years, frozen in hues of purple, ochre and blood red set by ancient artists who climbed the rocks of these cliff-bound rivers to ply their sacred, colorful trade. The art we see has been preserved in part because of its felicitous location, high, dry and remote. Nature was kind to it, but so were people. Until now, no one across its thousands of years of constant attention destroyed it. On a July 8 Science Friday podcast, Solveig Turpin, the archeologist who is most responsible for bringing this treasure to the attention of… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/29/11 at 09:59 AM
A welcome guest
A single fawn has taken to bedding just outside our daughter’s window. Nestled between a sweetbay magnolia and the warm stucco wall, the fawn disappears upon a bed of fallen leaves. (The magnolia is an evergreen that loses its leaves all year-round, which means no matter how voraciously the friendly microscopic beasties in the soil munch away, there is always a soft bedding of leaves beneath the tree.) The fawn is always alone, and seems to walk with limp, its back legs moving stiffly, well past the time of newborn awkwardness. So I don’t know if it has been abandoned, or chooses to be alone. I don’t know if it is happy or sad, at ease or just hanging on. Perhaps it comes out of despair, or perhaps it just wants some time to itself, an uncrowded space free… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/24/11 at 08:11 AM
Dirt is Us
I saw a dirty movie last night. Really. It is a movie about dirt, and is appropriately called Dirt. It is a must-see, humorous, informative, and inspiring reminder of how awesome is this precious world of ours. (It is free on-line, too, through Hulu and other video sites. Invite some friends over, turn down the lights, and turn up the sound.) It reminds us of the essential role played by that humble stuff we step on, sweep away, pave over, push around and otherwise derisively call, a la Mary Douglas, stuff-out-of-place. Dirt is the word we tend to use for the stuff we don’t want, that messes things up, that we want to wash off. And yet, Dirt, soil, humus, adamah, is the stuff we are all made from. The first human, we all know, according to Torah, was… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/20/11 at 07:14 AM
Funding from Fracking
The Forward recently published a most disturbing piece about Jewish summer camps signing on to allow fracking (hydraulic fracturing) on their land. Regardless of your view of the future of natural gas extraction, the current technology creates enormous and inequitable problems. And the exemptions that oil companies are extracting from governments are most distressing. We should make our camp owners and directors aware that many of us are not willing to send our children to sites where the water and air is contaminated by fracking techniques. Nor do we want to give our money to Jewish enterprises that endorse what is at present a reckless and destructive and inequitable energy effort. We are now beginning to explore efforts to approach camp owners and talk with them about fracking. If you want to help us, please let me know. read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/15/11 at 08:42 AM
The Privacy Outdoors
There seems to be a consensus among folks who write about homes these days that privacy is (a) a modern value; (b) a modern luxury; or (c) at the very least, a modern amenity. Perhaps because of the necessary modesty of the pre-modern home (few rooms serving multiple purposes for assorted occupants with little visual and aural barriers) there was an assumption of an accepted, or at least acquired, immodesty of spirit. But I don’t fully agree. We know from the midrash that the rabbis of old valued modesty of person and modesty of household. They cast their imaginations back and tell us that even in the trek through the wilderness, the Jews so valued modesty that they situated their tent openings in such a way that neighbors could not see directly into each others’ domains. And the gemara… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/13/11 at 08:54 AM
A Champion in the Senate
Senator Cardin leads fight over pesticides Maryland Democrat raises national profile on bay, environment By John Fritze, The Baltimore Sun 11:09 PM EDT, July 3, 2011 WASHINGTON — Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin, a longtime advocate of the Chesapeake Bay, is wading into the high-profile debate over the federal regulation of pesticides—instantly putting him at odds with fellow Democrats while potentially raising his national profile on environmental issues. Maryland’s junior senator is threatening to filibuster a proposal to limit the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s oversight of pesticides that end up in the nation’s waterways, including the bay. The move, which at the very least will delay the legislation, has set off a behind-the-scenes scramble among advocates who hope to override him if he carries through on the threat. For his part, Cardin said he believes the proposal needed slowing down.… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/07/11 at 06:10 AM
In Praise of the Commons
I have been reading about the Commons lately, the stuff of life that is shared by all of us; the stuff that is not and should never be enclosed, cordoned off, claimed or owned by any one person or entity; the stuff that - should it ever disappear, be destroyed or withdrawn - would take civilization with it. The Commons is air, water, green space, language, culture, knowledge, streets, calendar, holidays, the Fourth of July… Once upon a time, it was a popular, prized concept that guided much of how society thought. Today, if known at all, it is cast as quaint, archaic, at odds with the fast-paced, segmented, possessive (if not possessed) world of the buy-and-sell marketplace. And yet it is wrong to lament the passing of the Commons. It is still here, used - and abused -… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/03/11 at 07:05 AM
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Lists. Some of us love them and some of us hate them. We joke that it is good that Leviticus, the grand biblical book of lists, is read in the summertime when no one goes to shul anyway. And yet we could not live without lists: invitation lists, packing lists, shopping lists, laundry lists, to-do lists, top ten, ingredients, deposits, check lists, medical chart, punch list… In my reading about homes in New England, I stumbled across whole books that were simply estate lists, that is, documents that listed the contents of a person’s possessions (their land, home and all that was in it) at the time of death. And what was so remarkable about that is that for the most part, the list ran to 2-3 pages. That’s it. After a lifetime of living, producing, consuming, accumulating, most… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 06/30/11 at 06:09 AM
Firefly Enchantment
Two years ago, you could count the flashes of the lightning bugs in my yard one by one, out loud, sipping tea between each count, and still not miss a beat. The display was frighteningly paltry, and not just at my house but throughout the neighborhood. I was fearful that somehow we had managed to massacre this crepuscular army of lit-up beetle bottoms. But this year, they have rebounded. The very best view of this blessed renewal can be found just a few doors down the street, where the fall of the land flattens out into a little creek, and opens onto a hidden pond in my neighbor’s side yard. It must be the combination of creek, pond, meadow-like lawn and arc of tall trees surrounding it all, for evening time hosts literally thousands and thousands of fireflies lighting… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 06/26/11 at 08:04 AM
How to Respond?
I came out of the post office the other day to find three apparently kind and concerned people worrying over the fate of a small dog barking away inside a parked car. The driver’s window was open a crack, the day was hot though not impossible, the car was no doubt steamy, and the dog seemed unhappy about his confinement, though frisky and not in distress. These kind people were quite anxious about the fate of this dog, were ruminating about the callous and reckless nature of its owner, had called 9-1-1 and could not pull themselves away from this potential small tragedy unfolding until it was somehow resolved. But here’s the thing that got me: two of them were sitting all the while in SUV’s with their motors running and the air conditioning on. (I am rather certain… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 06/24/11 at 06:29 AM
Dive - Living Off America’s Waste
“Dive” sounds like a film I want to see. Film creator Jeremy Seifert tells us that “Every year in the United States, we throw away 96 billion pounds of food. That’s 263 million pounds a day, 11 million pounds an hour, 3,000 pounds per second!” (Talk about bal tachkhit - do not waste!) Jeremy should know. He regularly feeds his family by diving into the trash heaps behind supermarkets and surfacing with perfectly edible, healthy, and unexpired food. (I hope he finds soap and clothes detergent there as well.) In a world where millions go hungry and thousands die each day from malnutrition, to throw this food away is both a waste and a tragedy. I would bet that just miles, or even blocks, away, families are eating a diet of potato chips, pastries and sodas when they could… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 06/23/11 at 01:25 PM
Planting Oak
Last fall, the oak trees of Maryland yielded a bumper crop of acorns. In early October, I gathered up handfuls from out Towson way, hoping to plant them somewhere in my yard. The street behind us has oak; one or two houses around my neighborhood has oak; but we don’t have any oak. I was hoping that soon we would. The internet told me that acorns need 1000 hours of cool weather to “ripen,” so that I should put them in the refrigerator in plastic bags along with a bit of moist dirt and keep them there throughout the winter. Since we would be turning off our fridge for the five months we were to be away, I approached my mother, who graciously acceded to the honor of incubating our dirt. When we returned from our sabbatical, I thanked… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 06/19/11 at 09:57 AM
The Harmony of Sentiments
The first major book that Adam Smith wrote was not The Wealth of Nations but The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Although I have just begun it (one of my summer goals is to read it all), I needed to get no further than Part 1, Section 1, Paragraph 1 to be amazed, and to imagine what our marketplace might look like if the book’s opening words were the first words studied in business school, and the first words that opened all corporate board meetings: “How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it.” “To feel much for others and little for ourselves… to restrain our selfish,… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 06/13/11 at 04:32 PM
John Burroughs
I recently bumped into the writings of John Burroughs, a nature essayist and early homesteader who built a house in the woods that he called “Slabsides”. He wrote, as I have discovered, volumes. I have just begun to read them. But I wanted to share with you this quote that gives you a sense of his artistry, and captures the nexus between the natural and built environment. How wonderful it would be if we all knew the quarries where our stones came from, or had walked the woods where our lumber was felled. Or witnessed the furnace where our steel was shaped. How strong, how rich, would the bond between ourselves and our homes be then? “It seems to me that I built into my house every one of those superb autumn days which I spent in the woods… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 06/12/11 at 07:40 PM
The Necessity of Composting
In the midst of our heartland, in the midst of our Great Depression, America suffered one of its most devastating environmental, economic and human losses. The Dust Bowl ruined 50 million acres of what had been fertile, verdant grassland. Over 850,000,000 tons of topsoil were lost in 1935 alone. The systematic plowing under of the prairie sod destroyed an ecosystem that had developed over tens of thousands of years, and loosened billions of tons of topsoil so that, in the drought, it simply dried up and blew away. By 1940, over 2 million people were displaced. Having lost farms, livelihood and sometimes children to the ever-present dirt, they abandoned their homes, becoming a wave of “environmental refugees”. And the greatest tragedy was that it was all human-induced, predictable and avoidable. Today, we are witnessing something similar, and equally avoidable… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 06/12/11 at 10:18 AM
God’s Keychain
“See all the keys that God possesses!” God has the key to life, as it says: “... and God opened Leah’s womb” (Genesis 29:31). God has the key to rain, as it says: “... and God will open for you the storehouse of heaven” (Deuteronomy 28:12). God as the key to livelihood, as it says, “You open Your hand and lovingly satisfy every living thing.” (from the 8th century Letters of Rabbi Akiva) This ancient tradition imagines that God is the Grand Celestial Key-Keeper, the One who oversees life’s storehouses of goods and the gates that keep them secure. Day in and day out, God opens and closes this door and that: now the one to the heavenly pool that falls as rain, now the one to the rays of energy that fall as sunlight, now the one to… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 06/06/11 at 10:23 PM
Collaborative Consumption
Collaborative Consumption is an intriguing idea. It is based on the realization that many of us have too much and that perhaps we can put that excess to work. For example, if I have a drill that I rarely use, perhaps I could rent it to you for when you rarely need it. Or perhaps I work at home and have a car that sits idle for most of the week. And perhaps you have no car but only need a car for discrete times of the day. I could, if I were entrepreneurial, create a web presence to publicize these excesses, and invite you to rent my drill or my car. Friends do this all the time. Now this style of resource-sharing is becoming big business - person by person on a global scale. These peer-to-peer enterprises are… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 06/05/11 at 10:07 AM
Packing Up
As we begin to pack up our things and erase our presence from this borrowed space in Cambridge - returning chairs and planters and lamps to their original places and the apartment itself to its rightful owner - I realize not only how revealing this place has been about the spirit of the one who fashioned it, but also how intrusive it must have been for her to have us live here. With every shift we made, every surface we rearranged, every picture we ignored, we “manhandled” a bit of her life. This was a place carefully constructed - both intentionally and, in part, no doubt unconsciously - to capture the spirit of its owner, her comforts, her pride, her dreams achieved and those unfulfilled. So it is with all of us. All our homes speak narratives of ourselves,… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 05/29/11 at 11:08 AM
Housing Starts
Why oh why oh why will the news folks not think for themselves? Housing starts were down 10% over the last month - the lowest level since the 1940’s - the news media are telling us. That is fine, but it is the jeremiad, sky-is-falling, oh-my-oh-my-oh-my attitude that accompanies it that is disturbing. New housing starts are falling for several very good reasons: 1) We have too many houses. Builders over-built. The rule of thumb - so we are told buried somewhere in an otherwise hand-wringing report on low starts on NPR - that one million new homes a year would satisfy the market. But builders built - and bankers loaned money for - two million new homes a year for a good part of the past decade. So roughly speaking, we have a glut of 5-10 million new… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 05/17/11 at 06:12 PM
My contribution to environmental degradation
The sabbatical is almost over. It is time for me to begin to emotionally disconnect from this haven up north and prepare my return to Baltimore this summer. Just out of curiosity, I decided to check out how these differing lifestyles - city/suburb, apartment/house - affect the level of my CO2 emissions. That is, how does my ecological footprint here in Cambridge compare to my ecological footprint at home in Baltimore? I used one of the easier and quicker - if coarser - carbon footprint calculators, at nature.org. Here is what I found: our comfortable, city apartment lifestyle gives off a modest 15 tons of CO2/year, well below the national household-of-two average of 53 and much more in line with the world household-of-two average of 11, while our spacious, suburban Baltimore single detached dwelling lifestyle contributes a whopping 57… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 05/17/11 at 07:42 AM
On taking out the trash
It was a memorable trip down the driveway last night. A bodacious half-moon with a full-moon’s light shone on me and my garbage-can escort as we sauntered to the curb. It was a moon with an attitude, making up in self-possession what it lacked in size, proclaiming its majesty of the sky. Which is, after all, its patrimony: “And God fashioned the two great lights, the large one to rule the day and the small one to rule the night.” (Genesis 1:16) The Torah does not stipulate minimum size requirements, so even a brash half-moon can own the night. That, in itself, is a worthy object lesson: we can be bigger than we appear, fill a space larger than ourselves, if but dare to launch ourselves outward and let our lights illumine the dark spaces around us. All the… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 05/12/11 at 08:23 AM
Thoughts on Mother’s Day
Mother’s Day used to be so uncomplicated. It was a time to surprise the one who always knew everything, and give to the one who was always giving to you. Dad would take us shopping. All the kids would pile into the car, somehow thinking Mom would never notice, and go the mall to pick out a Mother’s Day gift, one that lit up the eyes of children. We would get a joint gift and invariably, excitedly, settle on a piece of tin jewelry with bright, sparkly glass gems; or an apron - which back in the good old days held tight the vision of hearth and cookies, love and motherhood, and was often adorned with a front pocket that was clearly the secret entrance to the world’s tunnels of magic, for all sorts of amazement mysteriously appeared from… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 05/09/11 at 06:18 AM
What we must do
This Thursday I go to Siach, an international gathering of environmental and social justice activists gathering on the shores of the Housatonic River in Connecticut. There, we hope to begin to create a global network of partners who work with organizations pursuing tzedek and hesed (justice and generosity), or so I imagine. In anticipation of these rich discussions and connections, I turned back to a manifesto I wrote three years ago about what the Jewish community needed to do to become a leader in the sustainability revolution that is being born all around us. There is no doubt that we have come a long way in three years. Yet there is much more that needs to be done. So, with the intent of creating manifesto that can be brought before every congregation, school and federation to discuss, refine, endorse… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 05/06/11 at 08:15 AM
Relief but no Joy
Judaism does not celebrate killing. When we speak of our enemies, we hope for repentance, a change of heart, not destruction of the soul. That is the story of Yom Kippur, when we read about Jonah and the people of Nineveh. That is the story of the Exodus that we recount at the seder, when we diminish our wine, and thus our joy, as we speak of the plagues that afflicted and killed the Egyptians. In interpreting the Bible, the rabbis severely restrained the application of capital punishment. To this very day, there is no capital punishment in Israel. And yet, on rare occasions, there are exceptions. Eichmann was executed for his role in the Holocaust. Pharaoh and his men were hurled into the sea. And today, there is Osama bin Laden. How do we know how we should… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 05/02/11 at 05:16 PM
Doors and Keys
My daughter brought me keys for Passover. Keys to front doors and back doors long abandoned and long forgotten; keys to private homes and public kitchens; keys to closets and cabinets, old hotel rooms, cars, rusty mailboxes, forsaken lockers and safes. Keys to who knows where and who remembers what? I use them for my omer counter. Each day of the omer, from the second day of Passover to the holiday of Shavuot, we count. Day One of the Omer; Day Two of the Omer; Day Three of the Omer…. To remind us which day we are on, and to serve as a mnemonic so we don’t forget to count altogether, folk art has created a vast array of Omer Counters. Our youngest son used to create a simple cross-hatch poster that hung in our kitchen. This year, he… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 04/24/11 at 01:43 PM
The Place We Left
Egypt at night, courtesy of NASA’s photo of the day. The Land of Goshen, where the Israelites first settled during the reign of Joseph, is thought to be located in the mid-right side of the “blossom” part of the flower. Having come in freedom to a wide, open place, the Israelites were ultimately pressed into the harsh and narrow service of building monuments to Pharaoh’s ego. There are many lessons to be culled from the story of Passover. Some obvious, some extrapolated. The following is of the latter sort: Under certain circumstances, the pursuit of comfort, even in a seemingly benign, welcoming environment, can seduce, lull and blind us to the incremental encroachment of slavery. What begins as a luxury becomes a necessity; what begins as desire becomes a need; what begins as a lark becomes a habit. And… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 04/22/11 at 08:26 AM
My Grandmother’s Bowl
This is my grandmother’s pesah bowl. In it she made matza balls, some “hard like a rock,” as she would say, for those who preferred them dense, and some so light and fluffy you almost weren’t sure you were eating them at all. Then there were the other other-worldly delicacies that emanated from this spell-bound bowl: the “pesah bagels,” the matza brei, and the taiglach (small knotted pastries boiled in honey). It has been 24 years since my grandmother passed away. My mother kept this bowl, which she brought out every year on pesah. Last year, as we were cleaning up after the holiday, I somehow ended up with the bowl. There is something about its smoothness, and its robin’s egg color that is just enchanting. Magical. It is hard to make something bad in this bowl. Which is… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 04/18/11 at 02:37 PM
Grey is the new Green, or new meaning for Pe’ah
In my on-going quest to blend economic prosperity with social justice, I offer you the following idea. During this respite up in Cambridge, I determined that I neither wanted to spend the money nor expend the chemical and water waste in coloring my hair. I wish I could say it was about purity of motive and the release from the insatiable clutches of vanity. It wasn’t. It was all about saving money and the environment. And therefore it was subject to being overturned if I thought I looked awful. (Though I would color it less often to reduce my outflow of money and pollution.) But, Avram seems to like it and in the dim light of the bathroom mirror I can’t really see what I look like, so, so far so good. However, I can hear the Wall Street… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 04/10/11 at 09:32 AM
New Beginnings
The month of Nissan has dawned, the first month of the Hebrew year, the month of Exodus, of harvests, of spring, and eternal renewal. The fears of winter are gone. (Tishrei is also the Jewish new year - when we celebrate Rosh Hashanah. But Nissan is always the first of months in the Torah. Whoever said there can be only one new beginning each revolution around the sun? The Jewish calendar reminds us that a new beginning comes with every dawn.) So at this time of new beginnings, when the world feels fresh and our hope is restored, when despite the overwhelming weight of threats and war, of injustice, divisiveness and our earth’s degradation swirling all about, despite it feeling like so much is falling apart and there is so little we can do, our sacred story bolsters us,… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 04/08/11 at 10:29 AM
Honest Jeans or the story of the travelling pants
In a supreme act of consumerism, we moderns have learned to buy time, that rarest and most precious of commodities. We do this in many ways, but one way that is doubly inventive is our penchant for distressed jeans. They are the ultimate symbol of purchasing an unearned identity, of paying for an imaginary personal past. That in and of itself is worthy of exploration, but here I want to talk here about the unseen price we pay in the production of those jeans. Here is a menu of techniques used to give our jeans their pre-worn look: [The] industry has developed a wide range of techniques [to simulate wear and tear] ... The very first distressed jeans were sold as stone-washed… washing them with a large pile of pumice stones is still common today, though it is… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 04/07/11 at 10:01 AM
Remembering the Triangle Fire
100 years ago today, tragedy struck New York City, a city that has known more than its share of tragedies. And it struck the Jewish people, a people that has known more than its share of tragedies. And the Italian community, and the vast community of workers who, in that heady era of early industrialization, were enslaved and endangered by the thirst and greed of unscrupulous bosses. I know much too little about the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire to comment more - but I, like so many, am both riveted to the story that is seared in our minds, and amazed at the hold this story has on our collective memory and imagination. Why it grips us so, is a question others are seeking to answer. But at the very least, it is a question that harbors hope. Hope that… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 03/25/11 at 07:29 AM
Wind and Sun
Grist - the green news blog with an attitude - reports that Germany’s solar energy complex now produces more power than Japan’s entire Fukushima complex. Couple that with the news that Japan’s wind turbines withstood the earthquake and tsunami without suffering any damage. We may be witnessing a sea change in the world’s outlook on how we can fire up the engines of human civilization without also destroying it. It is time for the nay-sayers to give the wind and the sun a chance. read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 03/24/11 at 06:50 AM
The Aftermath of a Storm
The protective structures I devised to shield my apple trees through the winter instead became their undoing. When the posts went down in the wind and snow, the netting took the tree trunks with them. Five trees were leafy and alive in the fall. Five trees were lost to the storms come spring. My mother called to gently break the news. “The storm brought down a lot branches, all over. I’m afraid the apple trees didn’t make it.” Home for a dash of hugs and housekeeping, I checked on my apple trees. It looked like utter devastation. Branches from our poplars and the noble beech lay strewn across the yard. The two large apple trees were parallel to the ground, trapped and flattened by the nets that were meant to save them. The smaller trees were entangled in their… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 03/21/11 at 10:13 PM
Perigee Moon
If the moon seems just a bit bigger these past few nights - and also a bit more beautiful - than it usually is, believe it. It is not your imagination. We are in the rare phase of the 18+ years orbit of the moon when it is at its perigee - closest to the earth in its slightly elliptical orbit. Which means, according to NASA, that the moon is indeed a full 14% larger in appearance in the sky and 30% brighter than what they call “lesser” moons. So if ever there were a time to dance in the moonlight, this is the season, and this is the week. Besides, the peepers are out in Baltimore!! Spring is definitely on its way. In fact, it is here. The spring equinox was last night, 7:21 PM EDT. (For more… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 03/21/11 at 06:59 AM
Celebrating Purim
It is a glorious Purim Day, when we are bidden to imagine that all of our foes are - at least for the moment - vanquished, subdued by our own hands no less (with a little help from You-Know-Who), and we are free to celebrate our deliverance without looking over our shoulders, or posting sentries by the gates, or locking our doors. I am a firm believer in casting about in the realm of the imagination. We all need to spend quality time there every now and then to make a good showing here. So off with you, bon voyage, and have fun with family and friends. To accompany you, perhaps, a bit of travel reading. Here is a link to a review I wrote of Ilene Winn-Lederer’s book, Between Heaven and Earth: an illuminated Torah commentary, published this… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 03/20/11 at 09:46 AM
Whose House
The human tragedy in Japan continues to unfold and we continue to search for the lessons that lie buried for us amid its ruins. Among all the teachings that will rise from the rubble, one rings out: we can no longer pretend that we hold nature by the tail, that we have tamed her and wrestled her and can ride her as we please. We can no longer imagine that nature is a discretionary element in our lives, that it lies docile by the door, waiting demurely, even servilely, til we let her in. Nature will not wait quietly out there while we root around in her cellar, raid her pantry and toss back the refuse when we are done. Nature remains a force all its own. The awesome might of nature wielded by God and drawn for us… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 03/16/11 at 04:22 PM
Confetti in the Morning
It was Times Square in my apartment this morning. A small moment of grand celebration. I got up early, and checked the weather on weather.com, as I often do. But this time, in scrolling down the site, casting desperately about for a hint, a hope, of one more snowfall before the advent of spring, I saw the following: “Minutes to sunrise: 45” Who knew? Every morning, evidently, early risers get to participate in a virtual countdown to the dawn of a new day. Not just when we are at the beach; or on vacation; or joining Dick Clark and a few million others once a year at midnight. Every morning. I checked the site again just to be sure. Yup: “Minutes to sunrise: 43.” The clock was ticking, waiting, anticipating, counting the minutes til the moment of grandeur this… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 03/10/11 at 08:32 AM
On Carrying
There is a deep intimacy that comes with the act of carrying. This thought came to me as I staggered home from campus the other day, a bulging book bag dangling heavily from my shoulders. There is no hiding in the act of carrying, no concealing the weight, heft and volume of the object(s) being carried; no faking the strength, will and capacity needed by the one doing the carrying. No amount of girdles, vertical stripes, or other visual deception can alter the knowledge revealed through carrying. To lift, hold, balance, cradle, and move an object yields an immediate body-to-body experience that other ways of transporting just do not possess. To carry is to know; it demands that we respond and bend our energies and attention to the needs of the other. It is relational, cooperative. Successful carrying calls… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 03/09/11 at 09:55 AM
Wondering
“In Kangra, in the north-west of India,” I read recently in my continuing search for the elusive concept of home, “where the Mitakshara system is in force, ancestral property is held in common by a man and his descendants as co-sharers. Any one of them can demand partition at any time. “The Mitakshara system distinguishes, in fact, the self-acquired property over which a man has full rights of ownership from the ancestral one, over which heirs have rights from the moment of their conception. “In other words, the members of the senior generation are trustees rather than absolute owners of the joint property. They have no right to sell or to give away the joint capital to the detriment of the other shareholders.” (The ‘Casser Maison’ Ritual : Constructing the Self by Emptying the Home, Jean-Sébastien Marcoux Journal of… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 03/07/11 at 07:59 AM
Being and Possession
Being and Possession There I was, happily reading along, thinking that I had found a new best friend, a soul-mate with whom to explore the mysteries of home and the ways we live in and are shaped by this primary space of ours, when bam!, I slammed into a teaching that shocked me. (Okay, so Peter King won’t be my new best friend, but I do want to thank him for treading the same path as I am and clearing away much of the underbrush that would, no doubt, otherwise trip me up.) In speaking about the necessity of calling home “mine” (albeit a “mine” that is often regularly and gracefully shared with others who also call it “mine”), and about how the ability to exclude others is a necessary attribute of home, King (in his book, In Dwelling)… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 03/03/11 at 08:23 PM
Sunlight
The sun is out, bright, shiny and early today, after several days of snow, rain and cloudy skies. It makes you notice. Its brilliant debut this morning occurred a full 50 minutes later in the day than when we first arrived in Boston mid-January. Then, sunrise was at 7:10 and daylight was only 9 1/2 hours long. Today, on the first of March, the harbinger of spring, the sun rose at 6:20 and will give us light for 11 hours and 13 minutes. It is seconds away from its longest daily leap forward of the year. (Today’s daylight is 2 minutes and 49 seconds longer than yesterday’s; the biggest growth spurt in daylight is, of course, around the equinox, when the sun is out for 2 minutes and 52 seconds more than the day before. And it does this… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 03/01/11 at 07:27 AM
Snow
This is the kind of snow that serves up in beauty what it lacks in volume. Big, wet flakes drape themselves on every surface, every limb, every wire, painting scenes of childhood dreams, the kind that animated Currier and Ives and allured Robert Frost. It is the kind of snow in which evergreens bow under the influence of a million flakes while their bare-leafed neighbors strut their stuff, flaunting every bend and twist and curve beneath their glaze of white. It is the kind of snow I love walking in, a bit, but mostly enjoy admiring from inside a warm, cozy home. No events will be cancelled today; most plans will not change; most people, I imagine, will just marvel at winter’s gentle beauty as they go about their day. Yet I also wonder about the panhandlers who frequent… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 02/27/11 at 08:45 AM
Intoxication
In 1798, upon remembering that his artificial dove took an ignoble nose dive on its maiden flight, and being overcome with “humiliated self-esteem,” Xavier de Maistre decided to go for a walk. Marveling at the ease with which the birds overhead managed to stay aloft, he awakened to a brand new sense of awe for all the unrecognized majesty around him. So he wrote: “A sense of profound admiration, of a kind I had never before experienced, lit up my soul. I thought I was beholding nature for the first time. I was surprised to hear the buzzing of the flies, the song of the birds, and that mysterious, indistinct hubbub* of the whole living creation as it spontaneously celebrated its author… ‘Who is the author of this brilliant mechanism,’ I exclaimed… ‘Who is he who, opening… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 02/23/11 at 09:55 AM
Names and Places
There are squares all over the place here. “Square” as in: “an open area or plaza in a city or town, formed by the meeting and intersecting of two or more streets and often planted with grass, trees, etc. in the center.” (dictionary.com) Now, given Cambridge’s density, the definition needs a bit of tweaking. While we are heavy here on the intersection part, we are a bit sparse on the open area, grass, trees, etc. part. Still and all, we have the more famous squares: Porter Square, Harvard Square, Davis Square, Inman Square. Those are intersections that anchor neighborhoods which have spawned local shopping districts that attract fierce loyalists. People become devoted to their squares, even as the squares, in turn, reflect the passions and the nature of their people. But then we also have the more modest squares.… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 02/21/11 at 09:10 AM
What we drink
Dear Folks, I rarely worry you with all my worries about what we ingest. My family has all but silenced me on that. As my oldest son says when I talk about yet the next thing we cannot/should not eat: “Eating will kill you. Not eating will kill you faster.” However, there are times to break the silence. I think most of us would agree that our food system, if not broken, is badly in need of repair. We have paid the devil in the coin of health of self and soil for the blessings of volume now. So while we have lots of food today, the quality of that food (never mind the quality of the soil that must grow our food tomorrow) has been severely compromised. All that being said, I focus your attention on soft drinks,… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 02/18/11 at 09:32 AM
Less
What if all our stuff had to be laid out in the open? What if everything we owned had to be on display, stacked on shelves without doors, hung on our walls, dangled from our ceilings? What if we had no closets or cellars or attics or storage units that could gobble up, chug down and otherwise conceal - from ourselves as well as others - all that we had? How would that affect our consumer appetites? How would that change what we bought and kept? (Confession: I say this as I prepare today to go to a local consignment shop to buy a book tote. My defense is that 1. the “new” one I am to buy is old, used, and would otherwise be tossed and trashed, and 2. my old one is tearing and leaving tracings of… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 02/16/11 at 08:30 AM
Natural History
Avram and I are living a scant half mile from The Harvard Museum of Natural History and pass it when we walk almost every day. It is open 361 days of the year (closed New Year’s, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve and Christmas), has free admission always to those with Harvard IDs and free admission Sunday mornings for all Massachusetts residents. It was increasingly embarrassing, therefore, that we had not yet gone. So yesterday morning we packed ourselves up (hand lens in tow) and trekked down for a late morning’s entertainment. You have to hand it to the museum. It knows how to make an entrance. Or at least its architects did. The building is set 200 feet back from the road with an unimpeded view from street to stair. The walkway is like a teacher’s stare, holding you fast to… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 02/14/11 at 07:36 AM
The Lion, the Witch and Mountaintop Removal
If Earth is our “Home,” it too has closets, those dark, earnest places where we tuck things away, treasures and trinkets and all sorts of things. Things we have in excess and things we can’t yet use. Things that are exhausted and things that need to ripen. Things that clasp our memories and things that await their day. Things we love and things we fear. We keep them, guard them, have a hard time parting with them for they are part of us. They are our passions, our feelings, our ideas and our dreams caught willy-nilly in the amber that oozes from our lives. Closets are acts in three tenses – past, present and future—with long intermissions. They encompass the ones who chose to save, the ones who guard the treasures and the ones who will remember and redeem… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 02/13/11 at 08:32 AM
More
It all begins with pockets. And bags and pouches, baskets and buckets, anything that helps us carry more than our eagerly cupped hands can reasonably hold. And the more we can carry, the more we will want. For while at first desire builds capacity, soon the tables turn, and capacity begins to build desire. I learned this recently by grocery shopping on foot. In the suburbs, I would drive to the food store armed with my shopping list crafted in response to three questions: 1) What do I need? (We will ignore the problem of the flabby boundaries of “need” for the moment.) 2) What do I want? 3) Where will I store it? I shudder to think what my cart would look like if it were bounded only by the first two questions. Where, after all, do appetites… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 02/11/11 at 08:44 AM
On Rag Rugs
Up a ways in New England, a mile or so from my childhood camp, was an old house that sat beside a sizable lake called Lovewell Pond (which the locals preferred to pronounce “lovel”). Once a summer or so, each bunk could sign up for an overnight at that house. We begged for the privilege, for staying there meant skinny dipping in the lake, eating ‘smores, cozying up around an open fire, baking fresh biscuits in the morning and otherwise reveling in summer’s long enchantment. One of the things I remember most about that house was the rag rugs. Throughout the living room and along the screened-in porch that ran the length of the house were rag rugs. About a dozen of them. They were dirty, for they held the sand and mud and dirt and dust that accumulated… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 02/09/11 at 10:06 PM
Lessons from Home
The home, as Mary Douglas reminds us, is an “embryonic community.” It is a small version (the seed, the germ) of life writ large. So perhaps, when issues concerning multinational commerce and nutrient trading confuse us, or when the ethical motivations that gave rise to them get drowned in the waves of market capitalization, we can return to the more familiar place of home and remind ourselves what these structures are morally designed to do. Douglas (citing Jon Elster) teaches us: The well-stocked home presents in small the essential problem of the commons. Its reserves are going to be a common resource for the denizens of the home if they can restrain their impatience…. If the homesteader consumes all his reserves in time of plenty, the home will be unable to supply his future needs… Opportunism traduces his overall… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 02/06/11 at 08:11 AM
Snow in the City
Now this is snow. Normal accumulation for Boston for an entire winter is 42.2 inches. As of January 25, 49.6 inches have graced this region. And 10-20 inches more are expected today and tomorrow. The snow is falling somewhere around an inch an hour right now—a welcome diversion for a southern transplant with a soft spot for the white stuff on a cozy sabbatical morning but trying enough for the hardy, winter-proofed New Englanders. They are ready to get on with their lives. Cities and snow don’t really go together. The biggest problem of course is where to put it all? Forget about renting out parking spaces. Folks with any spare real estate could earn a bundle renting out dumping spaces (otherwise colloquially known as “snow farms”). It’s seasonal income but it could be quite lucrative. (By the way,… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 02/01/11 at 11:32 AM
The Blessings of Music
The blog, eJewish Philanthropy, reports that the School of Sacred Music of the Hebrew Union College has been renamed The Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music. For decades, Debbie Friedman created new genres of popular and liturgical Jewish music. She joined the faculty of the HUC School of Sacred Music in 2007. She passed away, much too young, earlier this month. Every culture, every community, every person needs music, great music that enters us, engulfs us, helps define and anchor us. Harry Witchel, author of the forthcoming book, You Are What You Hear, tells us that music defines our “social territory.” We are what we choose to hear, and we hang out with those who like the same music we do. Music is part of the ways we talk, part of the ways we communicate, part of the ways… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 01/28/11 at 09:07 AM
Green Certified Labelling
Things just got a little better, and a lot more confusing. The United States Department of Agriculture is launching, come February 21, its new “USDA Certified Biobased Product” labeling program. While this sounds good, and may eventually be, critics are already at best wary and at worst dismissive. Consumer Ally recently posted a cautionary explanation of how the label might be a lot less than it appears, thus leading consumers to think they are getting more, and doing better, than they are. They report that to be eligible for USDA certification, only 25% of the product needs to be made from biobased (renewable) resources. And they tell us what the USDA tells us in its announcement as well: USDA’s BioPreferred program was created by the 2002 Farm Bill to increase the purchase and use of biobased products within the… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 01/26/11 at 07:14 AM
When Yours Becomes Mine
This is my workspace. It is in the kitchen, fast against the five-burner, turbo-charged gas stove (on my left). I can fire up the burner to heat water for tea without even getting up. Out the window this morning I can see almost 2 dozen chimneys chugging away, puffing out smoke, struggling against this frigid winter’s day. (It is 12 degrees now, much warmer than the -3 when I awoke.) A small flock of pigeons have taken up housekeeping on a chimney just to the west of us. When it is particularly cold, they tend to perch atop the chimney’s bricks, plunging into the shimmering heat of the building’s exhaust, an avian version of a shvitz, I suppose. One nesting pair seems to have won prime perching rights there. The others hang out on the peak of the steeply… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 01/25/11 at 07:18 AM
Trees and People
It is snowing once again. And while that takes a bite out of the public works budget, upsets the schedules of schools and parents, and depresses some local commerce (though increasing select others), I confess that from my vantage point - a fourth floor walk-up in a vibrant urban community with low-rise buildings so that my gaze glances over the rooftops of my neighborhood - I am loving this. It is reminiscent of the dream-world of the chimney sweep in Mary Poppins, only cleaner. Avram and I are trying out urban living, and with an easy walk to public transportation, a supermarket, fabulous hardware store (yeah!), bakeries, coffee shops and dozens of stores that fit almost every fancy, what’s not to like? We are no doubt exerting a footprint much lighter here than in Baltimore. But as I look… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 01/21/11 at 07:53 AM
Go and Plant
We often look far and wide to create a program, an event, an activity, a seder, a something that enlivens our experience of Tu B’shvat. But, in truth, the answer is no further than the tips of our fingers: Plant a Tree! I know, it is snowing outside. Literally, as I type this in my new office, it is snowing outside. And even if it is not snowing everywhere, for many of us the ground is still likely to be frozen and resistant to our advances. And for those of us who live in a warm climate, it may seem like an odd time to plant. But I still say: go and plant. Get your hands dirty; use your whole body; be the midwife to a sapling. Just do it indoors. I planted my apple trees indoors several years… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 01/20/11 at 04:21 AM
On Walking
I have been distracted of late, switching gears, trying to enter the mindset, the territory, of my book on Home. While some might call what I am doing “research”, it feels more like shpatziring, wandering around old ideas, rummaging around in old notes, window-shopping in books and quotes that line the avenues of my intellectual journey. Amidst all this I had the delightful distraction of babysitting my 12-week-old granddaughter for two days. We played and sang and danced and ate but mostly, we walked. Oddly, I was just then in the midst of reading Thoreau’s short monograph called, “Walking.” This is the source of Thoreau’s famous comment, “In Wildness is the preservation of the World.” Now, Thoreau, in typical fashion, doesn’t just talk about the experience walking; he doesn’t even settle for describing the exultation of walking. Rather, he… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 01/14/11 at 08:11 AM
Loss and Hope
It was a difficult weekend for the Jewish community. Even as stores were crowded and job creation increased, as we prepare for Tu B’shvat (the new year of the trees) and a new congressional session, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot and songwriter Debbie Friedman died. At a time when we need them most, one powerful voice of reason and understanding has been silenced for the moment. And one gentle voice of comfort and compassion has been stilled forever. I do not know Rep. Giffords - though it is not hard to imagine her just as she is portrayed: open, kind, disarming, helpful. Perhaps, paradoxically, while her voice cannot now be heard directly, it can be echoed and multiplied throughout the halls of Congress as her colleagues realize that it is in such tones of honor and respect that the… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 01/10/11 at 08:16 AM
The Future of Waste
Something of a news flash: There is gold in our trash. (Someone bolder than I might have written “them thar trash” but I’ll stick with “our”.) One hundred years from now, our descendants may scratch their heads and wonder how we could have been so benighted, how we could have been so waste-full and not known the value of it all. After all, we saw what waste could do in Back to the Future. Throwing away trash, the by-product of things used, is like throwing away molasses, the by-product of sugar refined. It is dark and rich and full of energy; something to be used and sold and enjoyed. Who knows but the landfills that dot the outskirts of our cities might be the greatest legacy we could be leaving our children. Which is important, because of the latest… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 01/05/11 at 05:21 AM
Winter Buds
A branch from my stately beech fell down the other day, a casualty of trimming being done to tame the wild offshoots of a neighboring tree. When I went to haul the branch away, I noticed buds, lots of them, all over. Somehow, I had reached this stage of life believing that buds come out in spring. But here I was, in the bitter cold, lugging away a 10’ beech branch which looked ever so ready to burst into bloom. I turned to my apple trees, a half-lawn away, and my cherry trees which overhang my mailbox and discovered that, yup, they too were embroidered with buds all tightly hunched over, secure against the winter wind. Huh. Why, I wondered, do trees put their buds out before winter, making them vulnerable to the harshness of winter and the hunger… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 12/31/10 at 08:37 AM
Of Time and Dreams
I was talking to a new friend today who - while healthy and strong - is designing ways to close up his affairs so that things are tidy when he goes. Both he and I imagine he has many years left, but tidying up is the sort of thing you want to do when it still feels optional. The problem, he confessed, is that in planning too much and tying things up too well, he was fearful that he would outlive his dreams. He had run a most successful business but retired from that 20 years ago. His most active days in non-profit organizations are behind him. He founded and runs a foundation, but he is “spending that down,” determined to give all the money away, so that it too will end before he does. He’s always prided himself… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 12/30/10 at 04:45 AM
Tzimtzum
“In fitting the space around her, a woman does not necessarily fill it the way a solid plugs up a hole. Instead, what happens for her is apt to be a circular stretching, such that she touches all the edges without filling up the center, thus still allowing the interior its essential emptiness.” This quote is from a book called The Sacred and the Feminine: toward a theology of housework by Kathryn Allen Rabuzzi. (Okay, I should probably pause here and explain that, no, the title is not a joke, though it comes perilously close to sounding like one. And no, Rabuzzi is not a friend - I don’t even know her; and no, I am not cozying up to her so she will take my cat. I am reading her book as part of the research for my… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 12/27/10 at 11:43 AM
Creation
”“And God said, ‘Let there be light.’ And there was light.” The grandeur of the universe stupefies. Indeed, its very existence, its origins and dimensions, are baffling. How could it have begun, morphing over the course of billions of years into something so grand while emerging from something so null? No stuff, no space, no time, no nothing. And then poof. Or bang. And voila. Shooting stars and tuna melts. Or perhaps it has been there all along, existing for ever and all time, never a start, not knowing before? Which makes more sense, a universe that stretches on forever and ever and ever and ever in space as it does in time, or one that starts (magic!) and then stops. Period. The End. Which is easier to grasp: absolute boundedness with nothing, nothing, on the other side (not… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 12/26/10 at 03:59 PM
Passive Homes
We keep the public spaces of our house set at 62-65 degrees - which, despite one’s initial expectations, is surprisingly comfortable. (Although my husband may differ with me here.) So, on an ordinary winter day, the living areas of our house that face north are a cool but manageable (depending on whom you ask) 62-65 degrees. My office, on the other, hand faces south, with a bank of windows reaching 12 feet high that lets the sun in all day long. We knew that without the foliage from the giant beech, poplar and hickory trees in front, the winter sun beats in and helps heat my office somewhat. What we did not know, til we removed the screens (to aid in watching the eclipse!) that the screens kept out so much light. And therefore so much heat. We decided… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 12/24/10 at 03:09 PM
Old Things
I started reading a curiously entertaining book called Home: the story of everyone who ever lived in our house by Julie Myerson. I have paused at page 47, the mere beginning of the 451-page book. The book deserves to be large because, like so many houses, it gives birth to more stories than its space can readily contain. The single-family house that is now the author’s home is 150 years old and, for reasons yet to be revealed, has had an unusually large number of people living there. In the pages of this book, the reader is treated to the rare, voyeuristic (and in this case, legal) pleasure of peeking both inside a family as it goes about its private life and looking inside the bones of a house as it morphs and molds around its residents. The surprising… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 12/24/10 at 10:36 AM
Lunar Eclipse
It is 2:07 a.m. and something is definitely eating the moon. We can see the slow assault from our living room window, the moon riding high in the sky, methodically being devoured by some nocturnal creature. Or perhaps we are witness to celestial pentimento, the gods’ regret, the divine painting-over of the moon so it no longer beams itself down upon us, leaving only a delicate smudge stubbornly proclaiming its past glory. (The gods now wondering what to paint next.) What must the benighted ancients have been thinking as they watched the heavens swallow up their moon? 3:00 a.m. The moon is a dim, red disk, reflecting the sunlight bending and streaming around the edges of the earth. As someone said, it is as if the moon is being bathed in all the earth’s sunrises and all the sunsets… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 12/21/10 at 03:58 AM
The Lunar Eclipse tonight
The winter solstice and a lunar eclipse converge tonight in a midnight extravaganza. (You can learn more about tonight’s eclipse here.) One of the wonders of lunar eclipses is the color of the moon. It turns coppery-red, reflecting the sunlight filtered through the earth’s shadow. Because of recent volcanic eruptions, the color may be even deeper than usual this year. The eclipse begins at 1:33 am Tuesday morning. Totality happens at 2:41 am and lasts 72 minutes. The eclipse ends (that is, the moon totally exits the earth’s umbra, the conical core shadow) at 5:01 am. So settle in for a sweet evening’s nap, rise around midnight, make a thermos of your favorite cocoa or cider, or something harder if you wish, snuggle up with a loved one and spend some time gazing at one of the greatest shows… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 12/19/10 at 10:48 PM
Watersheds
The Book of Genesis opens its saga of human settlement by describing the rivers that gave life to our first place: A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. (The gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx are also there.) The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush. The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Ashur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. Likewise, by law Jewish divorce documents, called gittin, must identify the town in which it they are written by naming its closest river or body of water.… read more
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 12/19/10 at 08:02 AM
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