Omer Count

Omer Week Seven - Tikkun Across the Congregational System: From Schools to Shuls

Brian Fink — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 19:23:16 -0400

This week, as we prepare ourselves for receiving the Torah anew on Shavuot, we travel across the congregational system, from schools to shuls, and then back again...

Included in this week's omer teachings, among other things, we learn the importance of reflection while you pursue social justice, potential suggested ingredients for successful synagogue tikkun olam programs, and discover many education related tikkun olam resources.

Omer Week Six- The Work of Jewish Social Justice Organizations: Collaborative Partnerships in Tikkun Olam

Brian Fink — Tue, 27 May 2008 05:47:16 -0400

In Brachot 63b, the Babylonian Talmud states that the Torah can only be acquired in partnership, while in community with others.

Therefore, this week's omer packet features some of JRF's many collaborative partnerships and formal external affiliations with other organizations, including The Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life, The Conference of Presidents of American Jewish Organizations, The Informed Meetings Exchange (INMEX), The International Association for Religious Freedom, The International Jewish Social Justice Network, The Jewish Coalition Responding to HIV/AIDS in Africa , The Jewish Council on Public Affairs (JCPA), The Jewish Coalition for Disaster Relief, Mazon – A Jewish Response to Hunger , The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, Secure Community Network (SCN), and The World Union for Progressive Judaism.

Omer Week Five - Praying With our Feet and Hands: Service Learning and Work in the World

Brian Fink — Mon, 19 May 2008 19:58:00 -0400

Members of JRC-Evanston volunteering in New OrleansThis week's omer study packet, on service-learning, features the upcoming JRF Teen-Parent Week of Service, happening in August 2008, reflections from service-learning trips taken by congregations Havurah Shalom and JRC-Evanston to Africa, and RRC students to Central America, with the American Jewish World Service, as well as domestic trips to New Orleans with the Jewish Funds for Justice.

Please also save the date for the exciting National Educators’ Institute for Jewish Service-Learning, being held twice this summer, in June and August.

- Isaiah 1:17

Belief in God, therefore, has to do... with human nature, with the way individual men and women act, with their attitudes, their ideas of what is good and what is bad, with their ideals... If we believe that life is worthwhile, that it is good, that, in spite of sickness and accidents, in spite of poverty and war, in spite of all the sad and difficult conditions in the world, that the world can still be made a better place, then we believe in God. When we believe in God, we cannot be discouraged because we believe that all the misery in the world is due, not to the fact that misery must be there, that it is a necessary part of life, but to the fact that we have not yet discovered how to do away with that misery.

- Rabbi Ira Eisenstein (adapted), From the Shabbat Vehagim, the Reconstructionist Shabbat and Festival prayer book, Reconstructionist Press

Omer Week Four - Advocacy: How and When Do We Take a Stand Within Our Communities?

Brian Fink — Tue, 13 May 2008 18:45:48 -0400

This week's omer study packet, on advocacy, features articles on how to make our synagogues into vessels of tikkun olam, and how to make decisions on controversial issues, as well as tachlis policy documents formulated by JRF congregations: Adat Shalom, Mishkan Shalom, and Tzedek v'Shalom.

This topic will also be featured on the last of our tikkun-olam-themed PEARL tele-conference calls, on Wednesday May 14. To register, click here.

Tikkun Olam committees have promoted a wide range of such projects: internal programming to educate members about how to live in environmentally sound ways, political lobbying and demonstrating to protest genocide or welfare cutbacks, volunteering in inner city soup kitchens, turning synagogues into homeless shelters, declaring sanctuary for illegal immigrants fleeing political oppression...

Many Reconstructionists have their most profound experiences of God through tikkun olam: working together, fighting injustice, acting to help others. It is not out of charity that they ally themselves with those who are oppressed or less fortunate, but rather out of the teaching that all human beings are worthy of respect and opportunity. If that is true, then injustice and discrimination deprive people of their birthright, and tikkun olam may be the most concrete and palpable way to make God’s Presence manifest in our world."

- Exploring Judaism: A Reconstructionist Approach, Rebecca Alpert and Jacob Staub, p. 59-60

Omer Week Three - Hunger and Poverty

Brian Fink — Mon, 05 May 2008 07:41:51 -0400

This week's Omer Study Packet on hunger and poverty highlights teachings from the 2006 JRF Omer Study and from our partners at Mazon: A Jewish Repsonse to Hunger and the Jewish Council on Public Affairs (JCPA).

Especially time-sensitive is the action alert on the 2007-2008 Farm Bill, currently making its way through Congress.

We also feature innovative programming from JRF congregations Dorshei Derekh, Mishkan Shalom and Darchei Noam.

In the packet's introduction, Rabbi Shawn Zevit reminds us that Mordecai Kaplan once wrote: “A theology which is not a plan of social action is merely a way of preaching and praying. It is a menu without the dinner.”

Jewish values provide us with recipes for repairing the world. As Jews and fellow travelers, our challenge is to discern how to embody these values in our lives and in our communities.

Often times this task can seem daunting. With so much brokenness in the world, where is one to begin to attempt to return the balance to the world?

To this end, we might view the holy task of tikkun in the area of hunger and poverty as expanding Kaplan's view of Judaism as the evolving religious civilization of the Jewish People. That civilization must be a spiritually, economically, socially, politically and ecologically sustainable religious civilization.

Hopefully, this information and the study texts that represent centuries of Jewish wisdom will inspire each of you to discover ways in which your communities can assist in alleviating the shadow of hunger and poverty that hovers in the light of all the abundance in our society.

Omer Week Two - Sustainable Communities: Environment and Social Justice

Brian Fink — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 21:07:33 -0400

From constructing new buildings out of recycled materials, to installing a compact-fluorescent ner tamid; from joining together in song, to discovering what musar can teach us about solving global climate change, JRF congregations are engaged in protecting their natural environment, reducing their carbon footprint, and ensuring a inheritance for those who come after them.

In partnership with COEJL and JCPA, our hope is to motivate and educate our congregations in sustainable practices, with the goal of reaching 100 percent participation in the years ahead. Building upon the resolution on the environment passed by JRF in 1990, our movement continues to labor towards facilitating a globally sustainable approach to living in faith community.

During this second week of Omer teaching, we are highlighting these many environmental sustainability initiatives taking place ...

Below, as an attachment, you will find a PDF resource packet and the recording from our environmental sustainability - PEARL tele-conference call, featuring:

A teaching by Rabbi Shawn Zevit of JRF
Links to environmental material on the JRF website
Notes from the Sustainable Synagogues Conference Call, held on June 6, 2007
A derash by Cantor Eric Schulmiller, from the Reconstructionist Synagogue of the North Shore
News clippings about the new building constructed by the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation in Evanston, IL - the greenest synagogue in America
The "Green Year Initiative" instituted by Congregation Shir Hadash in Milwaukee, WI
Urban Environmental Sustainability programming
created by Kol Tzedek in Philadelphia, PA.

As you read through the teaching, feel free to add comments on this page about your own experiences or use the listserve or web page to ask questions.

April 29, 2008 - 2:18pm — Rabbi Shawn Zevit Questions for Sustainability
On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 12:07 PM, Rabbi Shawn Zevit wrote:

Q. 1) If you imagine yourself at the end of this year, what action(s) do you most want to change in your personal lifestyle to include a
sustainability consciousness? What about as a faith community?

Q. 2) What ideas included in the Sustainability packet inspire or challenge your current personal and communal way of life and your impact on the local and larger eco-systems of which you are a part?

For additional resources on the Omer Learning Initiative or Greening Synagogues, go to our environment page at http://www.jrf.org/climate

Omer Week One - Congregation-Based Community Organizing (CBCO)

Brian Fink — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 12:46:31 -0400

During our first week of Omer teaching, we are highlighting the efforts and energy within our congregations engaged in congregation-based community organizing (CBCO). As you read through it feel free to add comments on this page about your own experiences in community organizing or use the listserve or web page to ask questions.

Below as an attachment, you will find a PDF resource packet and the recording from our Community Organizing and Congregational Advocacy - PEARL tele-conference call, featuring:

Rabbi Shawn Zevit, Director of Outreach and Tikkun Olam for JRF
Shuli Passow, CBCO consultant for the Jewish Funds for Justice
Rabbi Steve Carr Reuben, Kehillat Israel, CA
Kathy Kaufman and Irene Zipper, Chapel Hill Kehillah, NC
John Goldstein and David Weingrod, Shir Hadash, WI

For more information, please contact Rabbi Shawn Zevit at JRF, 215-885-5601 x 24.

Today, increasing numbers of synagogues are engaging in interfaith campaigns on vital issues of local concern, from expanding health coverage for low income workers to building affordable housing.

Since 2006, The Jewish Reconstructionist Federation has been partnering with the Jewish Funds for Justice, helping to develop a network and resources for Reconstructionist communities in Congregation-Based Community Organizing (CBCO) work.

As well, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College began offering training in the model of CBCO activism in the winter of 2007.

Information on community organizing can be found:

In 2002, JFSJ launched a national initiative to encourage and support synagogues as they deepen their social justice efforts through CBCO. Their goal was to address the lack of sustained engagement in activities beyond direct service programs and to challenge congregations to address systemic issues relating to domestic poverty and social injustice. The CBCO model of activism unites a diverse range of people, primarily through religious congregations, in the shared goal of building a civic power base capable of making change to promote the public good.

What is congregation-based community organizing?

Three core components of the synagogue organizing model are essential to the process:

congregants engage in one-to-one conversations within their synagogue, and often with other congregations, about their social justice passions.
leaders engage in extensive clergy and lay leadership training and development.
Synagogue leaders work side-by-side with dozens of faith institutions and progressive organizations in their community, across lines of race, class, and faith.

NEWS UPDATE: JRF member community "Chapel Hill Kehillah" of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, has helped launch a chapter of the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) to do the work of Congregation-Based Community Organizing (CBCO). Their first event, Sunday, April 27th was a successful, powerful and inspiring event.

http://www.chapelhillnews.com/front/story/14211.html

"We had hoped for founding member commitments from 14 organizations and churches and 170 attendees. By the end of the evening we had 250+ people and 29 organizations making founding member commitments and over $19,000 . As the article states, it was a truly historic event here in Orange County. Thanks to JRF for all the encouragement."

L’shalom,
Rabbi Jen Feldman
Chapel Hill Kehillah

Omer Learning Initiative 2008/5768

Rabbi Shawn Zevit — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 21:30:56 -0400

From Seedtime to Harvest:
From the values and spirit of tikkun to community building and sustained action

Beginning on the eve of the second day of Pesach, we are instructed by our tradition to count the days of the “Omer” until the fiftieth day, which is when the first barley crop would be harvested. It is also the Jewish holiday of Shavuot when, according to our tradition, the Jewish People received the Torah at Mt. Sinai. The counting of the Omer is a bridge between Pesach and Shavuot – between a moment of liberation and a moment of self-definition and direction at the beginning of our evolution as a religious civilization. It is an opportunity to deepen our study and close the gap between ideas and action for the tikkun (rebalancing, repair) of the challenges we face in our world.

More than 800 participants and commentators from 90 JRF congregations participated in the JRF On-Line Omer Study Initiative in 2008!

Each week during JRF's fourth annual Interactive Omer Study Project, we highlighted resources, teachings, and wisdom gleaned from the Reconstructionist movement and our organizational partners, on the following topics, that cover the major areas JRF and our member congregations have been working intensly on these past few years. The goal was to pull together the wide array of resources and encourgae the sharing of best practices and additional resources across our movement:

Week One - Congregation-Based Community Organizing (CBCO)

The teachings arrived in one electronic packet at the beginning of each week and ongoing learning took place through the accompanying study listserve.

For additional information please contact Rabbi Shawn Zevit at JRF, 215-885-5601 x 24.

2009 Omer Initiative: From Study to Action

2007 Omer teachings on environmental sustainability

2006 Omer teachings on hunger and povery

2005 Omer teachings on Pirke Avot

Omer Series 2007

Brian Fink — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 13:42:25 -0400

In 2007 our focus was on Sustainability (balancing environmental, social, economic and spiritual life in our congregations and larger communities). See the text packet atached to this post.

Rabbis, Hazzanim (cantors), Educators and members of JRF congregations commented on classic Jewish texts in the light of the sustainability work being done in their congregations.

2009 Omer Initiative: From Study to Action
2008 Omer teachings on Social Justice and Congregational Life

2006 Omer teachings on hunger and povery

2005 Omer teachings on Pirke Avot

Offsetting Our Emissions Impact Today for a Cleaner Tomorrow

Derek Rosenbaum — Tue, 29 May 2007 15:16:51 -0400

Wind Turbine Poloroid: Photo by Johnny KlemmeIs it not enough for you to graze on choice grazing ground, but you must also trample with your feet what is left from your grazing? And is it not enough for you to drink clear water, but you must also muddy with your feet what is left? – Ezekiel 34:18

These words prophesied by Ezekiel are spoken on behalf of God to the people Israel. Israel is likened to a flock of sheep or cattle that has abused the natural resources that God has provided. Just as Israel has acted as habituated animals who themselves are out of sync with their own natural order and have trampled the earth and muddied the water, so too are we, today, leaving behind a dirty footprint in the environment.

It is cause for some hope that many of us are becoming more aware of the impact we as individuals have on the environment. Many are taking steps to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by, for example, reducing home energy use, driving a higher mileage car, and switching to compact fluorescent light bulbs. The bad news is that despite reducing our impact, we are not acting quickly enough or on a large enough scale to stop the ecological damage around us.

Wind Turbines Near Palm Springs California: Photo by Jon HaynesWhile it is impossible to have a truly zero emissions lifestyle, it IS possible to cancel out a percentage of the emissions we create through carbon offsets. The idea is simple: for every ton of greenhouse gas we create through our transportation (plane, train, auto) and our energy use in the home, workplace and at school, we can donate money to projects that will result in a low-carbon future. This can be done through the purchase of renewable energy certificates (REC’s), or Green Tags, from current renewable energy generators such as your energy provider’s wind and solar power projects, future renewable energy projects yet to be created that otherwise may not have the capital to go forward, sustainable development projects that also help to fight poverty in developing countries, and local farm and landfill methane projects.

Here are some organizations that support sustainable development and carbon offsets:

Natural Capitalism pursues carbon offsetting by assisting in local or global reforestation programs to restore “natural capital.” American Forests promotes ecological services that store carbon.

Windmill in Missouri by Neal PiperReconstructionist Rabbinical College (RRC), the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association (RRA) and the Green Committee of the RRC have recently committed to paying a voluntary surcharge on the RRC electric bill to offset the greenhouse gases generated by the school. The surcharge goes toward the purchasing of wind power by the local utility. There is more that can be done, but this is seen as an important first step towards being responsible for the emissions we create as a community.

Congregations can also purchase carbon offsets when bringing in scholar-in-residence guests or traveling themselves to conferences or conventions. Some airlines have begun to offer this service for a nominal fee.

Another example of the Jewish community’s commitment to this work is Hillel’s Spitzer Forum, which was the first Jewish conference to be carbon neutral. Every carbon dioxide unit emitted by the conference was offset through a partnership with CarbonFund.org, making the Spitzer Forum a zero-net greenhouse gas emitter.

Ezekiel’s warning is extremely relevant when we consider a possible flaw in the carbon offsetting method. In Ezekiel’s metaphor, the animals had no choice but to graze and drink. It is their nature to seek sustenance from the earth. The wish is that they will tread lightly so as not to pollute their environment any more than is necessary. The animals did not have the option of paying others to clean up after their mess.

Today, we must be careful to not fall into the trap of viewing carbon offsetting as an excuse to pollute as much as we want as we pay others to neutralize our damage for us. There is a danger in seeing carbon offsets as a panacea to the problem of climate change and pollution. As a step towards reducing our use of natural resources and voluntary simplicity in our lifestyles, carbon offsets can be a useful tool at raising consciousness about sustainable living and more long-term solutions to global environmental challenges.

We have a responsibility to reduce our emissions as much as possible on a personal and communal level, and avoid trampling and muddying the very earth and water that sustains us.

Questions for thought and discussion:

How many tons of greenhouse gases are you responsible for? Your congregation? (see above links to calculate your impact on the environment)
How can the purchase of Green Tags be incorporated into your congregation’s tikkun olam initiatives?
What is the proper balance between curbing our emission activity and balancing out our carbon “footprint” with carbon offsets?