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In this interactive session, Rabbi Yonatan Neril and Yehonatan Kirsh engage in conversation about religion and ecology. Here’s what in this video: Introduction; Guest Background vis-a-vis Ecological Sustainability; What Judaism has to say about the environment; What’s the greater purpose of animals if not for human consumption? Why does God allow suffering of humans and animals? How to get society to consume less or no meat? The ethics of slaughtering Tension b/w Pro-Environment stance and Politically Conservative stance? Uniquely Jewish Leadership in Ecological Movement How to re-sensitize to environmental degradation How to Fight Anti-Human Sentiment; Spiritual hope & how to approach problem-solving in environmentalism How to make the world more religious, and thoughts on religious pluralism 28:22 “Shepherd consciousness” 31:27? Who are the “predators” of human society, and what's their function? Yonatan’s story vis-a-vis becoming religious “Mana” and food portion size; Torah commandment not to waste food; Torah commandment not to idol (anything other than God) worship; ‘Eye for an Eye’ mistake in environmentalism; How do we atone for our carbon sin; Noticing the state of the world; What are atheists missing? What are the consequences of not valuing monotheism? Closing story and blessing for the world; Jam session! This session took place Jun 30, 2023.

This clip is an excerpt of the Spotlights episode featuring Rabbi Ellen Bernstein. In this clip, she discusses her ecological interpretation of the Bible, specifically the ecological implications of the first chapter of the book of Genesis. She wrote a wonderful book on the topic, The Splendor of Creation: A Biblical Ecology (Pilgrim Press). Details for the full episode are available here. This episode was posted 06/13/2022.

Rebecca Stanfel of the Montana Jewish Project interviews Rabbi Ellen Bernstein.

Prof. Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, Regents Professor, Irving and Miriam Lowe Professor of Modern Judaism, Professor of History, and the Director of Jewish Studies at Arizona State University in Tempe, AZ. This talk was delivered on March 21, 2022. 

This week’s episode of Spotlights is a short clip from our episode featuring Rabbi Laura Duhan Kaplan, PhD, Director of Inter-religious Studies and Professor of Jewish Studies at Vancouver School of Theology in British Columbia, Canada. In this clip, Rabbi Laura talks about the symbolic meaning of donkeys in the Bible as well as the question of animal agency or personhood, reflecting on her book, Mouth of the Donkey: Re-imagining Biblical Animals (Wipf & Stock, 2021). Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/OCY5Tl7_EBE. You can learn more about her work here: https://vst.edu/people/laura-duhan-ka… You can find more information about the book on the publisher’s website: https://wipfandstock.com/978172525905… This episode was posted 08/23/2021.

This week’s episode of Spotlights features Rabbi Laura Duhan Kaplan, PhD, Director of Inter-religious Studies and Professor of Jewish Studies at Vancouver School of Theology in British Columbia, Canada. She discusses her professional and personal engagement in the intersection of religion and ecology, with particular attention to her newly released book, Mouth of the Donkey: Re-imagining Biblical Animals (Wipf & Stock, 2021). She provides a fresh, insightful, and accessible interpretation of humans, sheep, corvids, locusts, donkeys, and many more animals in the Hebrew Bible. You can learn more about her work here. You can find more information about the book on the publisher’s website. Posted 08/09/2021.

This ecologically sensitive Passover Seder led by Rabbi Ellen Bernstein is based on Ellen's Passover haggadah, The Promise of the Land. The Seder illuminates the centrality of land/earth in Biblical and Jewish tradition. Ellen is joined by musician extraordinaire Rabbi Cantor George Mordecai, who performs Sephardic, Judeo-Arabic and Ladino versions of several traditional Passover songs. Many other musicians, performance artists, eco theologians from multiple traditions, Bible scholars, and leaders of interfaith and Jewish environmental organizations join Ellen and George to create an enchanting Passover Seder that everyone-regardless of religious background can enjoy. Participants include Victoria Hanna, Joy Ladin, Nigel Savage, Rabbi Arthur Waskow, Rabbi Daniel Swartz, Rabbi Shefa Gold, Rebekka Goldsmith, Hazan Diana Brewer, Nili Simhai, Shamu Sadeh and many more. This Seder was a benefit for EcoPeace Middle East and took place on Apr 12, 2021.

You can also listen to an audio podcast of this episode here.
Scholar Hava Tirosh Samuelson, of Arizona State University, speaks about her work and the intersection of Judaism and ecology in our second episode of FORE Spotlights. This episode was posted 09/28/2020.

Peer-reviewed science offers a clear consensus: that climate change, caused by humans, is an existential threat, and the defining issue of our time. How can the Jewish community–from JCRCs to synagogues to national agencies–step up to meet this challenge? In this session at the JCPA2020 Workshop, top Jewish and interfaith experts offer concrete suggestions on why, how, and with whom to prioritize climate change as a core Jewish communal concern. They discuss the coalitional value of Jewish visibility, especially around environmental justice; the multi-faith promise of a growing response, linking Jewish communities deeply with our Christian, Muslim, and other counterparts; and the intergenerational urgency of staying relevant, as young people around the world lead the charge to address the climate crisis. Moderator: Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb, Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL) Speakers: Cassandra Carmichael, National Religious Partnership for the Environment(NRPE); Nigel Savage, Hazon; Joelle Novey, Interfaith Power and Light for MD-DC-NoVA. This event was held at the JCPA2020 National Conference, held from February 8-11, 2020 in Washington, D.C.

This Tu B’Sh'vat seder takes place annually at Hampshire College and is a new version of Ellen Bernstein's original seder (Philadelphia, 1988), which was the catalyst for Shomrei Adamah, the first national Jewish environmental organization. Tu B’Shvat is the new year for the trees according to Jewish tradition. In the 1600’s the Jewish mystics, the Kabbalists, who lived in Sefad, created a ritual—a seder—for Tu B’Shvat. The Kabbalists had a 4-dimensional view of life. They imagined that the cosmos operated according to 4 worlds: action, emotion, thought and spirit. For their seder they ate many kinds of fruits, drank concoctions of wine, made blessings, and read spiritual texts about nature. This seder that you are about to view is rooted in the four worlds of the kabbalistic seder. Here, action corresponds to earth, emotion corresponds to water, air corresponds to thought, and spirit corresponds to fire. You can think of the seder as a 4-course fruit feast. Each course is composed of readings from spiritual and contemporary sources, music, fruits, wine, and blessings. Four puppets signify the four different elements/worlds.

The global environmental crisis is real and, posits Rabbi Lawrence Troster, Judaism holds the key to living a life in balance with the natural world. His concept of “Green Torah Wisdom,” outlined in this talk, combines environmental and social responsibility with core elements of Jewish tradition, bringing a deeper consciousness to our everyday lives.

Rabbi Lawrence Troster, Dr. Heather Eaton, and Dr. Safei Eldin Hamed offer responses from Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions to Journey of the Universe. Rabbi Troster, a late Jewish environmental activist, draws from the Books of Genesis and Isaiah to suggest that the science of the universe story is offering people a vision of a new heaven and a new Earth. Dr. Heather Eaton, a theologian at Saint Paul University, highlights the need for Christians to retrieve its focus on creation, to reinterpret justice as ecojustice, and to reconstruct theologies of incarnation to encompass the entire Earth community. Dr. Safei Eldin Hamed, a scholar of environmental planning at Chatham University, interprets the Quran to suggest that there is equality between all creatures and that Islam can offer a holistic and functional cosmology for our contemporary world. This event took place at the Journey of the Universe and Our Elegant Universe Symposium on 06/26/2013.

In this presentation at the “Jewish Thought and Jewish Belief International Conference,” Hava Tirosh-Samuelson considers Jewish environmentalism and the intersection of scholarship, faith, and activism. She gives a brief overview of the Jewish environmental movement in America and offers a portrait of Jewish environmental organizations with some comparisons to the Jewish environmental movement in Israel. She then considers Jewish ecotheology and reflects on the claim that it reflects the reemergence of paganism. She ends by clarifying some challenges that confront Jewish environmentalism and suggests how to address them.