7. PROJECT BACKGROUND AND METHODOLOGY

Chapter Summary

To offer context for the experiences and findings of the subsequent chapters, Chapter 7 tells my own story (a sort of green spiritual autobiography), in four movements: making the eco-Jewish connection; emphasizing the interfaith angle; working with COEJL (the national umbrella Jewish-environmental group); and going deep with ‘thick description’ of the relatively ‘green’ synagogue, Adat Shalom, which I’ve served ever since ordination. This is at least as anecdotal as it is methodological, in light of Dr. Lew Parks’ suggestion that the project covers a “worthy slice” of my rabbinate and life as a whole, rather than being contained to a handful of controlled interactions or experiments. As such, it tells much of the story of the Jewish-environmental movement for its two decades of existence, since my story is bound up in that larger narrative. I have had the honor and opportunity to be involved in it almost from the beginning, and to have taught and spoken about eco-Judaism in countless places over the last two decades (including on a 1990 cross-country environmental walk, and during my year on COEJL’s national staff); the feedback on those presentations that is shared later on in Chapter 8 will pick up on the most narrowly “methodological” observations here, in the third (COEJL) section.

One Activist’s Story (Within the Jewish-Environmental Movement)

The practical piece of this D. Min. project thesis is located within the story of the modern

Jewish environmental movement. My role in that movement, over the two decades of its existence,

has been as one of a handful of early activist-educators (and then activist-rabbis) who have

collectively amassed a great deal of experience toward answering my initial Project Thesis question:

“Can I organize and motivate Reform, Reconstructionist, and Conservative synagogues and their

members, through exposure to Jewish traditions, theologies, and texts, to think and act faithfully

in an era of ecological crisis?” Borrowing from Rosie the Riveter and Barack Obama, the short

answer is, “yes we can!”

How to best do this, however, is more in the realm of art than science. What follows are

experiences, anecdotes, musings and analyses which hopefully point the way. Through story and

example, as well as through theory and theology and text, I hope to offer some insight and guidance

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for others to reflect and build upon. For a thesis drawing on twenty years of thought and action (as

D.Min. Program Director Lew Parks has suggested, this project represents a “worthy slice” of my

ministry, my vocation, my life’s work.), a fuller appreciation of my ‘methodology’ requires a walk

through my part in the Jewish environmental movement. The first section below, then, is a bit of a

‘spiritual autobiography,’ with a focus on my eco-religious development. It is followed by three

specific explorations of (a) the interfaith angle of my environmental work; (b) my one year on staff

of COEJL, the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life, which offered the most strictly

‘methodological’ of my approaches; and (c) the locus of most of my efforts, Adat Shalom.

Growing up in Toledo, Ohio, as the only child of a financially struggling single mom, I lived

a bifurcated life: economically below the poverty line for most of childhood, I nonetheless had social

access (mostly thanks to dear friends in our Reform synagogue) to tremendous educational and

religious enrichment. I credit my own lifelong progressive commitments to three early factors:

growing up financially insecure, being inculcated with Jewish values through youth group and

summer camp, and benefitting from my mother’s boundless hesed (loving-kindness). Those all

pulled me toward liberal causes in high school,1 then toward campus activism at Brandeis University

where I blended the political with the religious.

My first year at Brandeis, Arthur Waskow spent a weekend-in-residence; I followed him

around like a puppy-dog, awed by and trying to absorb all that he shared. His ‘aha-moment’ story of

‘conversion’ to religious (rather than secular) activism,2 and his testimony about how much more

authentic and sustainable his change agency became, left an enduring impression – and in turn has

1 One strong influence in high school was hearing a talk by Rabbi David Saperstein of the Religious Action Center, circa 1985, asserting that “we are the first generation which cannot afford the consequences of its mistakes.” I took that all to heart, and started my ‘activism’ early on. My senior-year rhetoric may have sounded radical, but my actions only gradually caught up – for instance, none of my high school friends won their informal betting pool as to when I would first be arrested doing civil disobedience (not until age 31!).

2 A fuller version of this story is in print as the frontspiece of Waskow’s Godwrestling, Round 2; this capsule version is taken from his online biography at http://www.shalomctr.org/node/1145 (accessed 1/9/09): “In 1968, a moment of volcanic history erupted deep into Waskow's soul, transforming his life into the Jewish path he has walked ever since. On April 1, 1968, Waskow was a secular political activist whose only Jewish practice was the Passover Seder. (It was, after all, about overthrowing Pharaoh and seeking freedom.) Then on April 4 came the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, on April 5 the Black uprising that swept through Washington, that evening the occupation of the city by the US Army -- and but one week later, the coming of Passover. To make ready for the Seder that year, as he had always done, meant – that year -- walking past the US Army, occupying his neighborhood. What rose up for him was the sense that this was Pharaoh's army. That volcanic eruption of feeling led him to begin a journey into serious Judaism, beginning with writing the original "Freedom Seder" -- weaving together the liberation struggles of the Jewish people with those of Black America and other peoples….”

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deeply informed my Jewish-environmental ethic, suggesting that one (tactical if not spiritual) reason

for religious ecology is that faith sustains us in our work for sustainability. With Waskow’s story as

an object lesson, part of my eco-Jewish ‘shtick’ contrasts the limited power we draw from a

movement whose genesis dates to 1970 (Earth Day) or 1962 (Silent Spring) or 1949 (Sand County

Almanac) or even a century earlier (Walden), with the ancient sustaining power derived from an

understanding whose roots are some three millennia old, sunk deep into the bedrock of Deuteronomy

and Psalms and Genesis. Arthur remains an inspiration and a presence in my life through today.

Brandeis’ Catholic and Jewish chaplains3 were both outspoken peace advocates; through

Father Mo, in summer 1988, I joined a two-week peace march from New York to Washington. At a

lunch stop in Delaware, I distinctly remember a conversation comparing disarmament with the

environment – as anti-nuclear activists, we were focused on avoiding the possibility of catastrophe;

yet ecological catastrophe was already all around us, and getting worse.4 Marcher Joan Bokaer

suggested a great ‘walk’ on a yet larger scale, with an environmental focus. Folks stayed in touch;

she organized it; I joined. Just planning to be part of the Global Walk established me as a collegiate

Jewish environmentalist, which led to my being invited to the first-ever ‘conference’ on the subject,

the public rollout of Shomrei Adamah in Philadelphia in May 1989. There I was, at age 19, blessed

by circumstance to be present nearly at the birth of this sadly necessary modern movement.

In January 1990, on leave from Brandeis, I began the 9-month, LA-to-NYC, 3300-mile

Global Walk for a Livable World.5 I had already served on the national Hillel “Student Secretariat”

and had been hyper-Jewishly-involved; this was to be my secular year. Yet my being the most

identified Jew among so many secular Jews and interfaith-interested others in this endeavor made my

3 Father Maurice (Mo) Loiselle was an inspiration mostly from afar; Rabbi Al Axelrad, himself an extraordinary activist, teacher and author, became a major figure in my early spiritual and political development.

4 Around the same time, Joanna Macy wrote to the same effect: “…it seems fitting to address the issue of faith and ecology…But some of us find it hard, even obscene, to believe in an abiding providence in a world of such absurdity as ours where, in the face unimaginable suffering, most of our wealth and wits are devoted to preparing a final holocaust. And we don’t need nuclear bombs for our holocaust, it is going on right now in the demolition of the great rainforests and in the toxic contamination of our seas, soil, and air.” (1991, reprinted in Gottleib 415)

5 Patterned loosely after the 1986 Great Peace March, we had a nucleus of some 40 walkers, more near every city and over every vacation period. Almost no one person walked each step of the way, since we took turns providing support (i.e. cooking all day for the group out of our small kitchen truck). I was part of the outreach group, which would sometimes drive ahead to the next town to line up opportunities to spread our message. I have often reflected on or made analogies to the divergent goals of the walk’s “eco-topians” (who carried all their belongings in a backpack rather than cheat by using the ‘gear bus’), and of us “outreach folks” who were willing to burn some gas in order to be able to teach others about driving less! Both camps do ‘environmental education,’ one by passive modeling and one by active exhortation. Which is more ethical, more efficacious?

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experience of the Walk an altogether religious one. And the headline “Jewish student activist walks

through your city” proved so interesting that 1990 became in part a cross-country speaking tour on

Judaism and ecology. I was only 20 at the time, with just cursory knowledge of the intersection of

these two great passions of mine. But I was a quick study who also got a lot of practice, giving over

200 presentations in various venues during this intense year (outlined in Appendix A-2).

The very first of these ‘gigs’ was quite memorable: Friday night at UC-Santa Barbara Hillel,

where I was the guest speaker, I managed to advance a few interesting points about the need for Jews

to go green. Afterwards, a student about my age approached me and said something like, “thank you

– I’m involved in all the campus environmental efforts, but haven’t set foot in a Jewish institution

since my bat mitzvah; a friend sorta dragged me hear after hearing about tonight’s topic – and not to

make too big a deal about it or anything, but the stuff you shared kinda gives me reason to stay

Jewish – so thanks.” She turned away, unaware that she’d given me a most memorable gift: the

insight that I was onto something, that exposure to these texts and values really could make a

difference, and that exposing Jews to environmentalism (and environmentalists to eco-Judaism)

could help retain or regain adherents to both Judaism itself, and to the ecological cause.

My early 1990’s were all over the place -- a little grad school in Massachusetts, a summer as

a nature specialist at a Jewish summer camp, a semester at Michigan (I began being a bicycle

commuter in Ann Arbor), a year in Jerusalem (during which I missed the founding of COEJL, the

Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life, which would loom so large later). As befits one’s

early 20s, I was figuring out who I was socially, intellectually, academically, professionally, and

spiritually. Ecology was very much in the mix, but it took time to see how it would settle head-and-

shoulders above other issues. Meanwhile my calling6 as a rabbi had now become clear, but what

kind of rabbi had not. Having grown up Reform with a sense of indebtedness to the denomination

whose youth group and camp had so shaped me, I always expected to attend its Hebrew Union

6  Rabbis do not often speak of getting their "Call." Aside from the rare hit-you-over-the-head-with-it prophetic call, like Isaiah 6 or Exodus 3, the concept never struck me as ‘Jewish’ – until a book I read (Suzanne Farnham, Joseph Gill, R. Taylor McLean, and Susan Ward; Listening Hearts: Discerning Call in Community; Harrisburg: Morehouse, 1991) held up a verse from Psalms that I'd not caught before:  "I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you" (Ps. 32:8, p.7).  There's the kind of subtle, discernable-through-natural-means "call" that I'd heard about from Christian friends and colleagues, right there in my own scripture!  The same volume also (p. 104 n6) first pointed me to a Martin Buber quotation with green implications (from his Collected Writings, p. 74):  "Creation is not a hurdle on the road to God; it is the road itself.  We are created along with one another and directed to a life with one another.  Creatures are placed in my way so that I, their fellow creature, by means of them and with them, may find the way to God."

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College - Jewish Institute of Religion. But when my application was rejected in 1992,7 I had the

good fortune to be able to look more broadly at where I belonged, and the answer was clear.

The Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, near Philadelphia, had already created the Jewish

Women’s Studies Program to bring that needed interdisciplinary approach into the core rabbinic

curriculum (it would yet be years before a single woman received tenure at the HUC-JIR’s central

campus, by contrast). In its basement Shomrei Adamah, the first-ever Jewish environmental

organization, had been birthed; a previous RRC President, Ira Silverman (z”l), had co-founded the

Shalom Center with Arthur Waskow. When I arrived in 1993 Arthur Green was still the President; I

had first heard of RRC years earlier when a seminary president calling vegetarianism “a kashrut for

our age” had made it all the way to the Toledo Jewish News, and thence up onto my high school

bedroom wall. I thrived at RRC. Its open approach allowed me to learn what I needed to succeed in

the pulpit, and to feed my passion by writing each major paper8 on how different eras’ texts might

contribute toward a Jewish environmental ethic. A rank amateur as a Jewish Environmental educator

on the Global Walk a few years earlier, by graduation in 1997 I was among those who had read and

thought and written the most on the intersection of ecology and Judaism – thanks to RRC.9

One seminary summer I did research and coalition work (including a few unofficial weeks as

COEJL’s interim lobbyist) for the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. Another summer I

directed the outdoor/nature program at Camp Ramah of New England, from which comes another

iconic memory about the effectiveness of religious environmental education. I was leading a 7 th

7 My earnest ecological practice apparently had something to do with it. Offered a beverage at the interview, I handed a reusable mug and said something like “thank you, please pour it into this which I carry everywhere as a small way to lighten my ecological footprint.” I’ll never forget that the chair of the admissions committee, on the HUC-JIR faculty in Cincinnati, then opened by saying, “I am threatened by your mug – it’s as if you bringing that in here implies that I’m doing something wrong by drinking out of a paper cup, and I resent that…” Oops!

8 The RRC curriculum, following Kaplan’s “civilizational” approach, went year-by-year through the strata of Jewish history, with the lion’s share of classes all accessing the language, history, culture, ideas, and sacred texts of a given era – Biblical, Rabbinic, Medieval, Modern, Contemporary. Each year one significant research paper was expected, called the Civ Paper. For Tikva Frymer-Kensky (z”l) I wrote on “The Ecological Potential of Biblical Texts;” for Jacob Staub it was “Anthropocentrism, Ecology, and Gaia in Medieval Jewish Thought;” for David Teutsch I examined then-four-year-old COEJL and offered an armchair strategic plan for it. My Rabbinic and Modern ‘civ papers,’ reworked, each became chapters in Arthur Waskow’s anthology, Torah of the Earth.

9 At RRC I also first encountered many colleagues, friends, and teachers – Betsy Platkin Teutsch and Rabbi Moti Rieber who’ve done groundbreaking work on Jewish simplicity; Rabbi Jeremy Schwartz who introduced me to birding, Gordon, and Amichai; Rabbi Shawn Zevit who has done so much to raise ecological concerns in and beyond the Reconstructionist movement; Rabbi Jeff Sultar, a fabulous teacher in this field; classmate-friends like Linda Potemkin, Yael Ridberg, and Toba Spitzer, among whom tikkun olam ideas flow freely; and since with the seminary comes the movement, my connections with Brant Rosen at JRC and numerous others date back here, too.

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grade girls’ bunk on an overnight canoe trip along the upper Connecticut River, and we’d paddled

many miles through gorgeous scenery and great wildlife. We’d set up our own camp, started our

own fire, cooked our own dinner. There was a beautiful twilight glow in the western sky, which

occasioned a thoughtful discussion about the tradition of facing east for prayer, toward a distant

Jerusalem far beyond the horizon. I highlighted for these Conservative Jewish girls the traditional

evening liturgy’s Ma’ariv Aravim prayer. One of them said, “I’ve said the words of prayer lots of

times, but I’ve never really prayed before, until tonight.” Bingo – the power of Creation to enrich

our spirituality, which should be no surprise -- since hashamayim m’saprim K’vod El, the heavens

tell of God’s Glory/Presence (Psalm 19:2), and God is the one who “in goodness every day, always,

renews the work of Creation” (morning liturgy, Yotzer Or). And as this then-13-year-old once needed

the power of nature to make Judaism seem relevant to her, she might today (at 28!) need to see an

environmentally-involved Jewish community for her to choose to get involved herself: “the

relevance of belief in creation must prove itself in ideas about the present ecological crisis and in

suggested ways of escape from that crisis.”10

During the same time the Teva Learning Center began its rapid rise, taking over Shomrei

Adamah’s Jewish environmental education portfolio, and crafting effective week-long explorations

for Jewish day school students which integrated science and Judaics curricula in the context of a fun

memorable eco-immersion experience. Though never on the Teva staff, I would go up a couple

times a year to train the trainers in Jewish-environmental text and thought, even as I absorbed their

brilliant experiential pedagogy. Teva still uses many of the materials that I compiled and brought

there; I still use many of the exercises and applied insights that I picked up from the Teva-niks.

Some of my brightest moments in this field have taken place at Teva and allied programs, and some

of my dearest friendships have been with folks in the vanguard of Teva and its Jewish environmental

educational kin – Adam Berman, Nili Simhai, Noam Dolgin, and so many other eco-Jewish teachers

and leaders extraordinaire.11

10 Moltmann, 22. 11 A sampling of Teva ‘others’ includes Shoshana Gugenheim, Shamu Fenyvesi, Nati Passow, Mat Tonti and

Julie Rezmovik, Jakir Manela and Netsitsah Greenfield, Casey Yurow, Laura Bellows, and more – including from the rest of the movement Janice Simsohn, Nigel Savage, Evonne Marzouk, Dr. Gabe Goldman, Ellen Bernstein, Rabbis Nathan Martin, Shawn Zevit, and Jeff Sultar, Rabbinic Students Roni Handler and Ariana Silverman, Barbara Lerman-Golomb, Margaret Presley, Rabbi Mike Comins, and many more here (in Israel Jeremy Benstein, Eilon Schwartz, and Alon Tal). I recommend any resource with any of these folks’ names attached to it.

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Blessed to enter a ‘dream pulpit’ straight out of seminary at age 27, I’m still there a dozen

years later. Adat Shalom, introduced and profiled extensively later in this chapter, has been a

fabulous community for a full-time pulpit rabbi who also wants to specialize -- though as with

colleagues everywhere, much of that specialization has to happen on ‘my own time,’ of which little

remains after the sacred demands of the pulpit itself. Still, being located in the busy and fertile

Washington area has enabled me when possible to get involved in some exciting projects, and to

teach and speak on eco-Judaism in a surprisingly diverse and significant array of settings.12

In this same time period I became a husband and a father, an unalloyed blessing in my

personal and spiritual life, but a mixed bag environmentally – it’s tougher to subject others to the

‘hardship’ of a low thermostat, harder to bike everywhere when many travels are in tandem. And as

I sometimes quip, our daughter has given me far more reason – and far less time! – for eco-activism.

On the eve of graduation from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, the Board of

Directors of Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation (where I had served for two years as

student intern then as interim ‘rabbi’) took two momentous votes at the very same meeting: hiring an

architect for its first-ever building, and hiring its first-ever full-time rabbi (me). Literally since day

one of my rabbinate, much of my own “Jewish-environmental” work has been focused on the

ecological footprint of houses of worship. Adat Shalom’s building project (which gained us an

EPA Energy Star Congregation award in 2002; more on this is in Chapter 8, “Green Congregations”)

was a central focus of the first four years of my rabbinate. It forced me to develop some expertise in

green construction -- sacred (if ‘secular’) knowledge that came in at least as handy in my work

beyond our synagogue as within it – upon which I would draw heavily during the 2003-04 program

year, when on sabbatical from Adat Shalom I became the first-ever rabbi to serve on the COEJL

staff. Green congregations have also been a key area of interaction and cooperation between Jewish

environmental activists like myself and our counterparts in the Christian and other faith communities,

well illustrated within Greater Washington Interfaith Power and Light. Each of these three areas

requires greater explication to provide context for the information and analysis which follow in

12 My largest if least substantive appearance was on the National Mall for the 30th anniversary of Earth Day, offering a 2-minute meditation on Shabbat and ecology before the crowd of many thousands. In sharp contrast was a workshop at the National Association of Environmental Professionals a few years ago, a serious small-group opportunity for an extended analysis of religion’s contribution to environmentalism. And some have just been uniquely Washingtonian opportunities, like offering 2008 testimony before the Federal Highway Administration on the climate and ethical impacts of CAFE standards (Corporate Average Fuel Economy; see Appendix B-18).

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subsequent chapters – so the present exploration of ‘background and methodology’ continues with a

focus first on the interfaith dimension of my experience, then organizational work with COEJL and

(through it) other synagogues, and finally some “thick description” of Adat Shalom itself.

One Activist’s Story (The Interfaith Dimension)

Despite the centrality of interfaith exploration to my life, rabbinate, and Jewish identity

today, the earlier stops on my own Jewish journey showed a surprising lack of interfaith

consciousness.13 It was the Global Walk for a Livable World, when I was 20, which inadvertently

offered me the route to interfaith dialogue. As the most knowledgeable and involved Jew in that ad-

hoc community, I was regularly called upon to speak publicly alongside Christian activists

(particularly a UCC Minister who was on the Walk for much of that year), highlighting the unique

contributions that Judaism might make toward a common goal of environmental consciousness and

action. I found myself learning more and more about ‘the basics’ of other faiths, out of intellectual

curiosity as well as to gain a clearer understanding of the extent to which these various Jewish

contributions were, in fact, ‘unique.’

I gained quite a few interfaith insights during this time, which have resonated ever since.

One was the power of ritual – the response of the 50 or so (mostly non-Jewish) Walkers to my

makeshift Passover seder for the group when it was in the desert outside of Gallup, New Mexico, was

overwhelmingly positive, and it opened up many participants’ emotional and spiritual floodgates.

Another was the need for respectful language – in the intensity of such a small community as this,

differences could amplify, even as recourses abound. Still another was the attraction of Eastern

traditions – the Walk was my first full-time extended experience in an intentional progressive

community, in which there may have been more folks who self-defined as Buddhist than as

Christians or Jews. And in a story out of which I’ve since gotten much mileage, I was reminded that

13 Just recently I got back in touch (through Facebook, quite the tool for reunions, in January 2009) with a high school acquaintance who is now a Lutheran pastor in Columbus, Ohio; I recall a few senior-year conversations with him as my first even semi-serious interfaith exploration. And though I was involved as an undergraduate in all kinds of domestic and international ‘secular’ activism as well as in Hillel (the Jewish campus organization), rarely did those worlds connect in interfaith dialogue.

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even from a self-interest perspective, it is better for a minority group to be in active and respectful

communion with the larger world, and to avoid insularity.14

As my spiritual journey continued after the Walk, interfaith dialogue became an ever more

central piece of my life. During my 1992-93 year in Israel, I was among a handful of Jewish

Americans studying there to venture beyond the Jewish parts of Jerusalem and even the West Bank;

my desire to understand more about the Palestinian reality was motivated partly by human rights

concerns, and partly by desire to better understand another faith and another culture – my appreciable

time in East Jerusalem and visits to Nablus and Ramallah were partly focused on these as Arab

towns, and partly focused on these as (essentially) Muslim societies. A particular highlight was

spending all of Christmas night not just in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, but in the grottos

belowground, hearing Mass recited in literally a dozen different languages. I went with a friend

whose fluent Arabic was needed alongside my Hebrew proficiency to get us through the various

cultural and physical cordons in place – a poignant reminder of the value of learning one another’s

language, both literally and figuratively.

In my third and fourth years in seminary, I was honored to be one of the Reconstructionist

Rabbinical College’s representatives to “Seminarians Interacting,” an intense program of dialogue

sponsored by the then-National Conference of Christians and Jews. Besides the two intense annual

full-group gatherings in Pawling NY, I was privileged to visit Yale Divinity School, Hartford

Seminary, Howard Divinity School (plus the amazing Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land in

America), and a small seminary and masjid in Baltimore City, and to host others visiting RRC. The

very experience of this deep dialogue, and the capacity and desire for more that it engendered in the

participants, were even more valuable than the vital content we imbibed. I still hold dear many folks

14 Needed background for this anecdote: I have long been a progressive Zionist, at the left-wing edge on co-existence issues and taking risks within the Jewish and Israeli communities to uphold values of justice and peace, but still in strong support of Israel’s existence. With that said: when the Walk went through Indianapolis in late summer, a whole interfaith environmental panel was planned, to which maybe 150 people came, mostly non-walkers. I and another presenter each focused as expected on eco-religious themes. But the third panelist, a local minister, used his time quite differently; he opened with “I know that the topic is ecology, but I am so worked up about something else that I feel compelled to alter the plan – you see I just returned from a fact-finding mission to Palestine, where I witnessed first-hand Israeli oppression and aggression…” Had I been some random Jewish guy in a suit, my protestation would have been as much of a non-sequitur as was this minister’s speech. But because I was part of the green community, in ongoing connection and dialogue with folks from other traditions around a shared concern, I had credibility when I said something like: “actually there are many aspects of the challenging situation in Israel and Palestine which Rev. -----’s presentation did not include, which would offer context for Israel’s actions – but we’re not here to talk about, so back to what people of faith can do to help save the Earth…” In that moment I saw that even one’s “insular” agenda can be moved forward by working with others on larger issues.

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I met through Seminarians Interacting, none more so than Rev. Dr. Wil Gafney, an AME-turned-

Episcopal minister, Hebrew Bible scholar, and dear friend with whom I enjoy ongoing discussions of

any topic, religion included. (NCCJ ended ‘SI’ some years ago for want of funds – a great loss.)

Despite these lasting friendships with fellow Seminarians Interacting alumni, once my full-

time pulpit rabbinate began I missed further opportunities to continue such dialogues. That gap was

filled first by my Doctor of Ministry studies at Wesley Theological Seminary, beginning in 2002; our

“Spirituality for Life Together” track spent much time and enjoyed much reflection together, and I

can trace particular eco-religious insights to my classmates (like Rev. Anna Straight encouraging my

interest in Wendell Berry’s writings) as well as to my teachers (all of them, but none more than Drs.

Sondra Wheeler and Phil Wogaman). The other great interfaith opportunity since ordination has

been my involvement in the InterFaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington,15 a small but

impressive group that unites practitioners of eleven great faith traditions across our region. My

service on the IFC’s board (2004-08) has been among the most rewarding and educational of any of

my volunteer stints, and I continue to cherish many of the connections made there as well. I came to

see clearly that “One needn’t be a Buddhist to share in the sense that ‘All beings seek for happiness,

so let your compassion extend itself to all.’ Nor must we be Catholics, or even to profess any

particular faith at all, to feel with Pope John Paul II ‘the joy of creation’.”16

Such opportunities as Seminarians Interacting, Wesley Seminary, and the InterFaith

Conference were (the former ceased for want of funds, a great loss in my mind) or are impressive for

their breadth. At the same time I have also, not surprisingly, cultivated a certain depth as well in the

interfaith encounter, focused on ecology. Again COEJL is the religious ‘quarter’ of the National

Religious Partnership for the Environment, and through my COEJL involvement I’ve had many

opportunities to learn and work with leaders in the other three quarters of the NRPE. I’ve had

tremendous overlap with both the past (Rich Killmer) and present (Cassandra Carmichael) directors

of the NCCCUSA’s17 Eco-Justice Working Group, and have been in many educational and activist

environments with their folks and with those operating under the US Catholic Conference. Most

15 www.ifcmw.org. While First Vice-President of the Washington Board of Rabbis, I was honored to fill the WBR’s seat on the IFC board; once President of the WBR, it was an even greater honor to sit with the likes of Archbishop Donald Wuerl, Bishop John Chane, Imam Johari Abdul-Malik, and many other esteemed colleagues across the religious landscape at the bimonthly Faith Leaders’ meeting. Kudos to Rev. Clark Lobenstine for keeping the IFC going for so long, and for making himself and the IFC early supporters of GWIPL (below) as well.

16 Matthew Scully, Dominion, 304.

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intriguingly I’ve had the chance to dialogue extensively with the folks behind the Evangelical

Environmental Network. I’ll long remember being invited to an NRPE leadership retreat outside

Greensboro NC a decade ago, getting picked up at the airport by a carful of leaders of that

organization, and enjoying meaningful discussion all the way to (and through) the gathering with the

likes of Calvin DeWitt, Owen Owens, and Jim Ball.

These experiences paved the way for my two central interfaith environmental efforts. Years

ago I was astounded to get a call from folk-singer-turned-UU-minister Fred Small (of whom I’ve

long been a great fan), asking me to help establish a new, more strident interfaith ecological voice,

Religious Witness for the Earth; he, Rev. Andrea Ayvazian (UCC), and I became the founding co-

chairs of RWE. I have learned and grown appreciably from these two treasured colleague-friends, as

I have from all of the good people in the RWE leadership.18 We have been through a lot together,

especially at the beginning – our first major action was a three-day conference here in DC in defense

of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in May 2001 (early in the Bush Administration), which

included twenty-two of us engaging in non-violent civil disobedience by praying in front of the

Department of Energy headquarters. In an interesting twist, we sang the contemporary hymn

“Sanctuary”19 while risking arrest; others in the Jewish community who witnessed and supported our

efforts were moved by that melody, and applied it to the Hebrew for Psalm 126,20 which has caught

on – a lovely and widespread reminder of the enduring impact of interfaith collaboration. RWE’s

website (www.religiouswitness.org)21 opens with a quotation from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,

17 See the National Council of Churches in Christ – USA’s Eco-Justice program at www.webofcreation.org. Cassandra has been a source of aid and inspiration since her days at Center for a New American Dream, through these NCC years; I can say the same of Rev. Fletcher Harper of Green Faith, among other key ‘interfaith’ figures.

18 From the early days this included Margaret Bullitt-Jonas and Kate Stevens among others; more recently Andy Burt, Roger Gottleib and Zo Tobi have added their energy. I am indebted to all for any insights offered here.

19 Kent Ira Groff (58) calls “Sanctuary,” by Randy Scruggs and John W. Thompson (1982), “a contemplative and contemporary hymn that can be a call for personal holiness and societal holiness – sanctuary for aliens.” I had never heard it until Andrea Ayvazian taught it the night before 22 of us sang this hymn as we were escorted from before the Department of Energy doors into police wagons, in civilly disobedient protest of America’s culpable inaction on global climate change – an issue of “sanctuary” for aliens & residents, plants & animals & humans alike.

20 Psalm 126 or Shir Ha-ma’alot, “A Song of Ascents,” has entered the Jewish liturgy as the introduction on Sabbaths and Festivals to the birkat hamazon or grace after meals. From the leadership of the Teva Learning Center which was there in 2001 as witness and support, this melody spread far and wide in the Jewish world, including to the new Reconstructionist Jewish youth center, Camp JRF. It came full circle when my colleague, Cantor Rachel Hersh Epstein, fresh back from a week at Camp JRF, introduced “my civil disobedience hymn” to our synagogue!

21 www.religiouswitness.org, accessed as recently as January 2009. At present the group is without a staffperson, and in a trough between campaigns, with an unclear future – but even should it fold, or merge with a partner organization, its impact on me and on the many folks who have participated in it along the way is enduring.

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signaling the group’s intentional efforts to bring some of the civil rights movement’s “fierce urgency

of now” into the religious-environmental world.22

Less strident, but yet broader in its interfaith reach, is the Interfaith Power and Light

movement. Founded primarily by Rev. Sally Bingham in California over a decade ago (Sally

happened to be in Washington in May 2001 and was among those who took part in RWE’s civil

disobedience), and largely supplanting the NCC-and-COEJL joint effort to create statewide

“Interfaith Energy and Climate Campaigns” across the map, Interfaith Power and Light chapters now

thrive in most states. The initial model is brilliant in its simplicity: help houses of worship to green

their own facilities, turning them into demonstration sites for sustainability which are seen by

parishioners and others; from there let the word spread and the activism surge. I have been part of

the steering committee of the Greater Washington Interfaith Power and Light ever since it was

established in 2004, and took over as Chairperson in 2008; it has been my pleasure to work closely

with three successive GWIPL program directors, movement veterans Reverend Rich Killmer and

Rabbi Daniel Swartz, and more recently the talented, energetic, and fabulously effective Allison

Fisher. I am also grateful to the wonderful folks with whom I share the leadership of GWIPL –

above all Beth Norcross, a co-founder of the national Green Seminary Initiative and an adjunct

faculty member here at Wesley Theological Seminary, from whom I continue to learn a great deal.23

It has also been inspiring to see the interfaith cooperation born of GWIPL blossom, including

fabulous collaborations between the ‘DC Green Muslims’ and ‘Shomrei Adamah’ of Greater DC.24

22 Angela Smith, contacting most faith-based ecological organizations in the country, found that “only one group [RWE] out of forty-two uses tactics of civil disobedience, public witness, and demonstrating.” Smith shares our befuddlement that this sentiment is so rare: “… it is widely agreed upon that the larger economic and political structures in society must change if the environmental crisis is to be solved. Thus, it is interesting that a movement which seeks to alter broad societal structures works primarily within those very structures in order to do so, rather than engaging in more confrontational tactics that would perhaps underscore their point more overtly. This may be because there is ambivalence about engaging in politics…. an interesting area for further research” (100-101).

23 Besides Beth, Allison, and the indomitable Rev. Clark Lobenstine, I’ve been blessed to share GWIPL leader-ship with Mohamad Chakiki (Environmental Leadership Fellow and DC Green Muslims leader), Reid Detchon, T.C. Morrow, Barbara Green, Mike Tidwell (fabulous director of Chesapeake Climate Action Network), Jerry Lawson of EPA Energy Star, Doug Siglin of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Bev Harrison, Molly Hauck, and other great folk.

24 A vestige of national Shomrei Adamah’s brief creation of local affiliates 20 years ago, this has been a social and activist home base for my entire time in Washington, thanks to the likes of De Herman, Mike Tabor & Esther Siegel, Naomi Friedman, Naomi Edelson, Dan Ziskin, Iris Amdur, Rachel Lettre, Lindsey & Brian Savoie, Joelle Novey & Ethan Merlin, and Devora & Rabbi Jason Kimmelman-Block. LEED-Silver Eastern Village Co-Housing in downtown Silver Spring MD, filled with Shomrei Adamah leaders, is an informal local eco-Jewish nerve center!

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These organizations, and key individuals within them, are named and commented upon for a

reason: throughout this project thesis, numerous ideas have their genesis or their maturation in my

interactions with these wonderful teachers, friends, and colleagues – in ways often too seamless or

even un-remembered to cite in a footnote. My uncounted conversations and interactions with these

sources of my learning collectively comprise a large piece of my “methodology;” each one of these

people, from the interfaith and Jewish-environmental and synagogue orbits, incrementally contribute

to what Dr. Parks called that “worthy slice of my ministry.”

One Activist’s Story (Within COEJL, and Various Synagogues)

The Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL) was born at the confluence of

factors both internal and external to Jewish life itself. The ideas and values and texts were all there,

and the literature to date reflected that. Yet the early 1990’s were a time of great environmental

ferment -- Chernobyl and Bhopal and the Montreal Protocol to phase out ozone-destroying

chlorofluorocarbons were all just a few years earlier, and then in rapid succession came the Exxon

Valdez spill, the summer of hazardous garbage washing up on East Coast beaches, the 20 th

anniversary of Earth Day, the UN Climate gathering in Kyoto, environmentalist Al Gore’s

ascendancy to the Vice Presidency, and more. Events in the news kept the public eye on the

environment in a new way, and people of faith were touched by that trend as well. Well-known

activist Paul Gorman set wheels (and funding) in motion to create the National Religious Partnership

for the Environment (NRPE), a meta-umbrella covering four smaller umbrella groups within it – the

pre-existing Protestant Eco-Justice Working Group of the National Council of Churches, the already

nascent environmental program at the U.S. Catholic Conference, and two new ones, the Evangelical

Environmental Network and COEJL.

I had heard the stirrings of COEJL as it incorporated in 1993, met the first director during her

short tenure, and then got to know a peer (later friend) who led the organization for nearly a decade,

Mark Jacobs. In 1995, when COEJL held its first conference for activists, I was there as both a

presenter and a participant, and would be again at most of its ten or so conferences (held until 2005).

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Shortly thereafter a national Board25 coalesced, and I was on it, remaining there without interruption

save for my year on staff. The Board had never been a particularly strong one, with a small

executive committee26 making most decisions; still I remained connected to its goings-on (including

attending its first and only seminar for rabbis, in 1998, where I learned much, especially from

presenters J. Baird Callicott and Mitch Thomashow). Many friends and colleagues in that world

have profoundly influenced my thinking over the years – Rabbi Neal Loevinger, Michal Fox Smart,

Rabbis Warren Stone and Larry Troster, Mark Jacobs himself, and numerous others.27

For most of COEJL’s first decade, I was about as involved as one could be – writing

materials for its campaigns, brainstorming regularly with the director and the executive lay-

leadership, lecturing and organizing on its behalf, attending board meetings and conferences – short

of joining the staff. I always wondered, though, what it would be like from the other side, to be able

to devote my full energies to the cause. Six years into my rabbinate (and one year into Wesley

Theological Seminary’s “Spirituality for Life Together” Doctor of Ministry track), with a full-year-

half-pay sabbatical looming ahead, I saw and seized my chance. In that full year from July 2003

through June 2004, on a roughly two-thirds time basis, I became COEJL’s first Rabbinic Fellow.

The grass may indeed always be greener (so to speak) on the other side. This much-

anticipated experience was on balance a positive one, but not unequivocally so. Working on my own

schedule out of my own (under-equipped) home was challenging from a time-management

perspective, and notably devoid of the camaraderie and interaction that attends my days as a pulpit

rabbi. In choosing to work (if in a different arena close to my historical passions) through the

entirety of sabbatical, I missed the decompression and rest and renewal and return to sanity in my

25 What COEJL long called its Board was technically a steering committee, since COEJL has never been its own 501c3 organization. This became a major issue around 2005-06 when fundraising goals were not met, and COEJL’s prime sponsor (the Jewish Council for Public Affairs) had to assume a good deal of debt, much to the chagrin of the latter’s (actual) Board. COEJL is now (early 2009) restructuring, presumably en route to obtaining independent 501c3 status, and again being able to afford having a full-time Executive Director.

26 Until quite recently, the COEJL executive committee was comprised mostly of leaders of its three initial leading sponsors -- the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, and the Jewish Theological Seminary (Conservative movement).

27 Among the many ‘numerous others’ in the COEJL world to whom I am indebted are Stephanie Zelkind, Hadar Susskind, Kirsten Kleinman, Liore Milgrom-Elcott, Deborah Shapiro, Danielle Luttenberg (Meitiv), Saul Kaiserman, Rabbis Nina Beth Cardin and David Seidenberg , Rabbis Steve Gutow and David Saperstein, Mirele Goldsmith, Sharon Bloome, Terry Gips, Lee Wallach, Rivka Gevirtz, Ted Eisenberg, Arden Shanker, Catherine Greener, Dr. Devra Davis, Jennifer Kefer, Barak Gale, Jakir Manela, Dick Goldman, and others far too numerous to name. Whether staff or layleaders, theoreticians or practitioners, all have influenced me in ways great and small….

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work-life balance that should be the seventh year’s hallmark – so much that at the 2004 High Holy

Days after my return, I half-joked in a sermon that “I flunked sabbatical.”28 Furthermore I

overestimated how much I could reasonably accomplish in this one professional year, and

underestimated how many minutiae and distractions (of the COEJL job) and unforeseen needs (of

life) would arise. The year did not meet my near-Edenic vision of full-time study, interpretation,

sharing, and organizing around those Jewish texts and values which point us toward Creation care.

From this minor disappointment came a useful insight, however: I actually like being a pulpit rabbi,

who dabbles deeply (in his ‘spare time’) into other pursuits!

With all that said, my year on the COEJL staff looms large in my project ‘methodology.’ My

scope of work there included giving a number of synagogue presentations and talks in other venues,

some of which are described in Chapter 8, “Green Congregations.” While I have been an occasional

teacher of eco-Jewish Torah throughout rabbinic school (1993-1997) and my rabbinate (1997-2009

and beyond), the twelve months of sabbatical (July 2003 - June 2004) were a rare opportunity for me

to make this a focus.29 As the memo I wrote at the conclusion of my COEJL staff year to the Board

of Trustees shows (see Appendix A-1), over the course of that year I ended up making over fifty

Jewish-environmental presentations, in ten states, for thirty-five different groups including

eighteen synagogues (8 Reconstructionist, 6 Reform, 3 Conservative, 1 unaffiliated), reaching

well over 2000 people during that period, about one hundred of whom were clergy.

The “methodological” elements behind these presentations were completely different

form one situation to another, making generalizations impossible. Some invitations came

28 In that sermon (Yom Kippur, 2004, in private file) I claimed partial responsibility for falling short, but not complete – I was forthcoming about personal challenges including miscarriages during that sabbatical year, and broadly hinted at professional challenges as well – some with the synagogue in my absence, and frustrations in working with COEJL’s then-new Executive Director, through whose transition I was to represent ‘continuity’ (he departed just a year and a half later).

29 Against the fifty-plus eco-Jewish presentations I made during that year, in a ‘normal’ full-time pulpit year it’s more like ten. In fact, outside of 1990 on the Global Walk and 2003-04 as COEJL Rabbinic Fellow, I don’t keep track of such presentations at all, so such numbers are informed guesses rather than provable facts. There’d also be the complexity of figuring out what ‘counts’: I lead worship weekly, and more often than not make some ecological reference or analogy in passing, though only rarely do I “give an environmental sermon” or make such a theme central in the service. So by one count I may indeed make over fifty public presentations a year of eco-Judaism, though that count ‘counts’ the offhand remarks and short segues as well as the sermons or addresses which could be reasonably described as “on that theme.” That said, as friend and pedagogue Phyllis Lerner suggests from her work on women’s issues, “talks given” is hardly the measure of choice, and the goal is not to address this is isolation but to bring about “an inclusive approach to eco-Judaism, having it be seamlessly woven and omnipresent.” Precisely that theme emerges in Chapters 8-9, especially Chapter 9’s “sustained sustainability” observations.

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directly via the national COEJL office, and others from local Jewish-environmental groups.

Some opportunities emerged through colleagues and personal friends (like the wintertime swing

through the Midwest chronicled at the opening of Chapter 8 below), while others came out of the

blue. Some venues I sought out, and others fell into my laptop. Likewise the range of groups

addressed and formats utilized varied quite widely: Shabbat sermons, holiday observances,

classroom teachings for youth, grant proposals, text study and discussion sessions for adults,

field trips, guided tours of our ‘green synagogue,’ rabbinic brainstorming sessions, panel

presentations, a tree-planting event, and an interfaith vigil across from the United Nations.

Originally I had hoped to apply appropriate social science methodology toward addressing

the question of what works best in these educational realms – ascertaining what style and content

goes into the most impactful presentations, and coming up with general recommendations based on

the data collected – yet as my project got underway, it became clear how narrowing a task that would

be. I had toyed with creating a survey about levels of ecological action and thought, giving it to

members of a given synagogue in advance of a visit, and then (while also collecting specific

feedback on my presentation/s) re-surveying attendees to see what had shifted. But I quickly realized

that this was not feasible given both my own limited facility with such social science tools, and also

the real-world limits to how patient and willing the membership and leadership (and how controlled

the environment) of those synagogue-communities might be.

Intermittently I was able to seek and receive responses to a scaled-down version of this

evaluation mechanism, in the form of a one-page questionnaire following my visit (see Appendix A-

8, from my visit to JRC). Yet even those responses were too few in number30 and too lacking in

depth to offer any quantifiable data of use; at least in some cases, the qualitative information was

helpful. I do nonetheless stand by the five questions that were posed, and believe that had it been

feasible to get responses from each of the over fifty presentations I made in that year, some

interesting trends and themes could be discerned and dissected. The five questions were as follows:

30 One simple factor accounts for much of the failure to collect useful feedback: while I may not have demonstrated sufficient persistence in follow-up requests for feedback, more often than not my presentations were on the Jewish Sabbath or a festival, when the simple act of writing is prohibited by Jewish law, and at least frowned upon even in liberal or ‘post-halachic’ settings. The odds of securing a response fall precipitously if it is not received while the information is fresh and the presenter is still present, something which often was simply not possible.

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(1) How effective was the presentation? What worked best, and what could be strengthened?(2) How appropriate was the presentation for the age, interest, and knowledge level of the group?(3) Please name one-to-two newly acquired Jewish-environmental insights.(4) Please name one new environmental action you are taking because of what you’ve learned.

(5) Does the Jewish-environmental synthesis make sense to you? Please explain.

Difficult as it was to glean useful quantifiable assessment data from the in-person

presentations, doing so would prove even harder in the second major area of my work that year as

COEJL Rabbinic Fellow. Powerful as a visit from a live (and hopefully lively) staff person or

teacher or ‘expert’ can be, that model is not sustainable in terms of staff time, budget, and even the

carbon emissions profile of such an attempt. Many more people can reasonably be touched by

permanent resources made available to all via the world-wide-web, than are likely to be present at

each individual sermon or class or panel or event where the outside educator is presenting. Thus a

major piece of my portfolio was to set up the “Greening Synagogues” section of the COEJL website

(more in Chapter 8). By writing many webpages from scratch, heavily editing or annotating and

then incorporating others, and by importing a few from elsewhere in their entirety, I ended up

generating or editing 84 webpages that year, creating the “Greening Synagogues Resources” at

www.coejl.org/greensyn31 -- what would become the web’s most complete resource on how

synagogues can reduce their ecological footprint and better care for Creation. It has received

thousands of hits, and anecdotally seems to have had quite a reach in recent years. Still, it is nearly

impossible to broadly measure or otherwise ascertain exactly what formats, and which kinds of

information, can make for webpages that are not just accessed but utilized.32

Much commiseration with fellow Jewish environmental educators has followed, over the

challenges we face in trying to quantify the effectiveness and impact of our efforts – we all collect

and appreciate a good deal of anecdotal information, but little hard empirical data. Educators at the

Teva Learning Center have begun implementing more sophisticated tools in this arena, as have some

of our counterparts in the Israeli environmental movement, one of whom drew on two years of

experience in environmental literary research to explain that nothing ready-made would do: “in

31 Initially that simple link, www.coejl.org/greensyn, took one directly to these resources. Other materials and campaigns have since been added, so my resource bank is now one further click away under “Greening Synagogues Resources.” The direct link is http://www.coejl.org/~coejlor/greensyn/gstoc.php.

32 Current technology can measure on-page viewing time, original ‘hits’, forwarding practices, and more – but none of this was available to me during the COEJL staff year.

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order to evaluate an environmental education program you need a tailor-made evaluation.”33 But

it became clear to me that to create such an evaluation, and thus to say anything original and useful in

this regard, would require thorough immersion in other disciplines and acquisition of entire new skill

sets. More recently I learned that Evonne Marzouk at Canfei Nesharim (the Orthodox Jewish

environmental group) has been making some impressive headway in this regard.34 And someday,

perhaps, I will too – but now, mostly anecdotal (qualitative) information is provided, gleaned from

correspondence with those who organized and participated in my sessions. I join here with Angela

Smith, whose recent Master’s Thesis on faith-based environmental groups in the U.S. cited this – in

her case, the ability of groups who focus on ethics and values around ecology, and not simply on

issues, to establish metrics for success and impact – as one of just two key areas “for further study.”35

One somewhat more quantitative tool at my disposal, a 2008 thesis by Sarah McGowen

Franco (summarized in the Literature Review in Chapter 3, and drawn upon in Chapters 8 and 9),

offers a survey and report of nearly two hundred members of five synagogues in Maryland, DC, and

Vermont. Two of the synagogues account for the vast majority of responses to an electronic survey

of beliefs and attitudes that was sent out via synagogue distribution lists and list-serves, and Adat

33 Maya Negev, personal email, 3/10/2007. For future reference Maya, from the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, recommends the "Guidelines for Excellence" by the North American Association for Environmental Education (naaee.org) as a starting point, though she and her colleagues are continually looking for refinements and new approaches. I am grateful also to Yaakov Garb of Ben Gurion University for some bibliographic recommendations in this arena, including three articles from the International Journal of Environmental Education and Information by Ballantyne and Uzzell 13:2 (111ff), Bacchiori and Vezossi 16:2 (141ff), and Reid 31:2 (1ff)

34 Evonne Marzouk, personal email, 3 February 2009. “We have been working with the JESNA [Jewish Educational Services of North America] Berman Center to do program evaluation, through our relationship with Bikkurim.   They have helped me to understand that you can measure not only change in behavior but also changes in attitudes and awareness.  We do surveys to measure the short-term and long-term impacts of most of our programs.  I’d be happy to discuss this with you if it’s helpful.  Of course our programs are still young (as is the whole field) so we’re not measuring major impacts yet, but I feel we’ve laid the groundwork and established some baselines, and tracked some impacts where they exist.”

35 Angela Smith, Faith-Based Environmental Groups,” 2006, page 130 (italics are mine): “As was noted by many religious-environmental groups in the present study, the results of the ethics-based work in which most of them engage are not so easily quantifiable. Not only does this mean that groups have difficulty locating financial resources because funders generally prefer to see measurable results, but it also makes it difficult for groups to know whether or not their work has been successful. Aside from people’s personal testimonies in which they directly report a transformation to a group with whom they have interacted, there are few ways of objectively receiving feedback about ethics-based efforts. As a result, it is difficult to ascertain if a group’s work has been ineffective, thus necessitating a change in course. Future research should seek to measure the effectiveness of faith-based environ-mental groups in changing people’s values, or in making individuals more aware of how their ethics already provide them a template for dealing with the environment. Such work would prove helpful to the religious environmental community as well as the academic community by providing an indication of the true impact of this movement.”

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Shalom (my synagogue which is profiled directly below) was one of those; the other rabbis and I

from each synagogue were also interviewed, as were a few lay-leaders. Neither she nor I have the

complete answer to her observation and question: “Rabbi Fred is undeniably a passionate advocate

for the environment and he readily incorporates this zeal into his sermons. Yet how effective is his

message to his congregation?”36 Franco’s best material draws on the most interesting and thought-

provoking responses from the electronic questionnaire or the interviews. Her numerical survey data

do not track the impact of particular resources or teachings, but taken together with the comments

and interviews, they illustrate the extent to which individual members’ responses track what the

rabbis emphasize within each community (see Chapter 9).

And with that, on to this ‘eco-rabbi,’ and his primary spiritual and professional community:

One Activist’s Story -- Within Adat Shalom

Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation in Bethesda, Maryland, the synagogue I’ve

been privileged to serve for over a decade, is affiliated with a notably progressive movement. As the

only Reconstructionist congregation in the immediate area, Adat Shalom is a “destination

synagogue” for liberal Jews in the entire Washington, D.C. area, drawing members from a wide

radius across Montgomery County Maryland, Northern Virginia, and the District of Columbia. It is

widely known to have among the most progressive members, and active social action programs, of

the scores of local synagogues. Social action themes are central in nearly half of the community’s

carefully written and ratified (and intermittently updated via an extensive communal process)

“guidelines”, and comprise nearly a quarter of the text in its Statement of Principles, which includes

this most relevant line: “The Mitzvah of Tikkun Olam obliges us to work toward the prevention of

hunger, homelessness, disease, ignorance, abuse, and political oppression among all people as well as

to work toward preserving the health of the global ecosystem upon which all life depends.”37

36 Franco, op cit., page 101.37 See www.adatshalom.net. The synagogue is very proud of its core documents, which are prominently

featured in the lobby of the building, on the website, and in packets sent out to prospective members as well. Through these mechanisms and more, the values in the synagogue’s Statement and Guidelines are continually being integrated into both the program and the ethos of the community. A few illustrative passages from the Statement of Principles, amplified in the Tikkun Olam guidelines and elsewhere, include: (a) “We embrace a maximalist, progressive, and egalitarian Judaism in which study, worship, and action pervade both our religious and our secular

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Even so, as is often the case in congregational life, I must acknowledge something of a gap

between rhetoric and reality (see Chapter 8).38 The Social Action Committee is but one of over a

dozen standing committees, and not the most active one at that, with the Environment subcommittee

likewise one of a series of social action initiatives. Likewise the synagogue’s budget -- the document

that helps a congregation “to assess whether its resources are being deployed in a manner consistent

with the congregation’s purposes and goals”39 -- shows a small percentage of expenses going toward

social action (less than 1% if we speak only of program expenses, though probably closer to 5% or so

factoring in staff time, environmental enhancements to the building, a commitment to paying ‘living’

rather than ‘prevailing’ wages, etc.). I do not wish to be overly negative; there is much of which to

be proud. Our largely progressive, committed members are disproportionately ‘out there’ in the

community doing good work – some of it under the Adat Shalom banner, much of it independently.40

To better understand both the rhetorical and the real aspects of social action at Adat Shalom,

I studied available survey resources, and added a series of ten in-depth interviews with members who

have been active in one way or another with the social action program (for a Wesley Theological

Seminary class a few years ago on ethnography as a congregational tool).41 It was clear that a broad

lives;” (b) the section on Inclusive Community “explicitly welcomes… all Jews, regardless of their sexual orientation…disability, economic status, ethnic origin, gender … not only Jews of Sephardic and Mizrachi backgrounds, but also Hispanic, Asian, Native American, and African-American Jews, as well as interracial families;” (c) the section on Social and Communal Responsibility opens with “Redifat Tzedek, pursuing justice in every aspect of our lives and our communities,” and then considers three Jewish values that come under that heading: “Tzedakah, in its narrow sense of supporting good in the world through financial contributions; Gemilut Chesed, performing acts of lovingkindness for others; and Tikkun Olam, repairing the world through social action.”

38 Member and friend Phyllis Lerner, in helpfully reviewing a draft of this chapter, saw the crux of this question in Andy Levin’s comment, below. Building on that, she noted: “here’s this conscious, educated, [often] monied group of people. They know it. Will they DO as individuals, families and congregants? Will they walk their talk? IF they do, perhaps there are possibilities for those less sheltered in a community--or in a less progressive one.”

39 Nancy Ammerman, Jackson Carroll, Carl Dudley, and William McKinney, eds; Studying Congregations: A New Handbook (Nashville: Abingdon, 1998), 142.

40 Obviously, partisan political activity is not a congregational position, nor was I ever involved there other than as a private citizen – but the Obama grassroots office in Bethesda often sported a minyan (10) or more of our members at any one time, and was jokingly called “Adat Shalom East.” Ours is a 90-95% or more “blue shul.”

41 The class was with Mary Clark Moschella. The interviews took place in July and August of 2002, with eight women and two men – a ratio which roughly mirrors that of the visibly active members doing social action work. The age of the interviewees was rather evenly divided among thirties, forties, and fifties. They included people who have been members for most of the congregation’s 15-year history, and those who just joined Adat Shalom in the last year or two. Seven were then married and three single, with one in each category having been previously divorced. Five had children at home; two had grown children; three had no children. The educational attainment level was uniformly high: all have completed college, and most have advanced degrees as well. Within Adat Shalom, the interviewees held posts ranging from Vice President to ‘line volunteer’. All of the interviewees worked, eight of them full-time, many in explicitly activist fields or in helping professions.

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swath of Adat Shalomers deeply resonates with the congregation’s stated mission of tikkun olam, and

many put those values into practice in various ways in their own lives. Still, the question emerges:

“how well does the community put these principles into action?” Based on my own “participant

observation” as the community’s rabbi (and as a regularly present member of the community),42 I can

say that the answer is decidedly mixed.

As interviews would later demonstrate, social action is indeed a major factor in what initially

draws members to Adat Shalom. This in itself is not surprising; the social basis of affiliation is well

known, and is a central insight behind the Reconstructionist Jewish approach. Just as certain

congregations attract members of a particular ethnic community or class or religious ideology, so

might political and social beliefs logically be a factor. This is even less of a surprise for a ‘liberal

magnet shul43’ in the Washington area, where so many people are already deeply involved in politics.

Many members have long held that they “simply couldn’t imagine themselves” in a community made

up of individuals who were not overwhelmingly (though not universally!) pluralistic, liberal, and

open-minded. This general consensus leads tikkun olam (world betterment) to be among the first

values raised by members in conversation, and points toward the tremendous ecological potential of a

community such as this.

And even so, there seem to be unspoken limits to what can be done in this, or any,

synagogue. A question that Sarah Franco’s thesis tackles (addressed below in Chapter 9) was

prefigured in Marc Gunther’s profile of three clergy-people in his study on business, faith, and ethics

– how much should or can clergy do, practically speaking? As Gunther echoes my own reflections

from around 2003 back to him:

Dobb has had to strike a balance between expressing his strong political and environmental views—which are well to the left of the mainstream—and ministering to relatively affluent congregants, including businesspeople, who might be put off by his opinions. “There’s that great line that clergy are supposed to ‘comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.’ I need to be able to both,” he said. “So for my SUV-owner congregant whose mother just died, her choice of

42 As many had predicted in a class discussion on the subject, my multiplicity of connections with each interviewee posed real challenges and limitations. I had officiated at one’s wedding and one’s daughter’s bat mitzvah, and converted one’s husband. I had been arrested with one (with RWE, above), briefly employed another, co-chaired an outside conference at which one presented, been in half their homes and vice-versa, counseled them, and knew their stories. As their rabbi I was, to varying degrees, their employee, confidant, counselor, officiant, teacher (and student), leader (and follower), co-conspirator, admirer, nudge, neighbor, and yes, friend.

43 “Shul” is a Yiddish word for synagogue, widely used as a synonym in American Jewish life; some variation on this “liberal magnet shul” moniker came up in numerous interviews.

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vehicle is irrelevant at that point. But at the Kol Nidre service, if I have chosen a so-called prophetic topic, the fact that even the president of the synagogue drives an SUV should not dissuade me.”44

As hinted at in the prefatory appreciations, I am grateful beyond measure to be part of

such a thoughtful, respectful, serious, compassionate, involved community as Adat Shalom.

Working with these kinds of folks, day in and day out, is a true brakhah, a blessing. In terms of

‘methodology,’ as I strive to articulate the sources of my learning and the basis of any insights

amassed here, the Torah of the good people of Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation –

expressed in private conversations and emails, in adult and youth education settings, in D’var

Torah discussions from the bimah with 300 of our closest friends, at onegs, on retreats and field

trips, at social action projects, in homes, and elsewhere – looms large indeed.

This ‘thick description’ of Adat Shalom concludes with a theological rumination.

Influenced by Mordechai Kaplan’s religious naturalism, Reconstructionism emphasizes divine

attributes over divine existence. Rabbi Harold Schulweis, a student of Kaplan’s, called it

“predicate theology” – the idea that we focus on the adjectives that describe God and can also

describe us, located in the predicate of a standard sentence (i.e. “God is just”), rather than on the

subject itself, namely God. In this approach the reworked sentence, putting attributes first,

becomes “justice is Godly.” In this approach, imitatio dei becomes the central goal of humanity

which is, after all, nivra b’Tzelem Elohim – created in the divine image (Gen. 1:27-29).

Adat Shalomers, then, are accustomed to searching for God by doing Godly works. Social

action is among the holiest possible uses of our time on Earth45, since we are repairing God’s world.

Contemporary theological writings favor such an expansive understanding as well: Kathryn Tanner

44 Marc Gunther, Faith and Fortune (NY: Crown Business, 2004), 136.45 The traditional sense of tikkun olam, repairing the world, traces back to around 1570 in Tzfat in northern

Israel, when the dynamic young Isaac Luria revolutionized kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) with his re-reading of the creation story: in short, God withdrew the divine Self from most of the universe, placed earthen vessels into the void, and tried to fill them with “100% God Concentrate.” The finite vessels could not withstand the Infinitude, and shattered, creating the known world – in which there is room for evil (empty space), physical matter (shards of the vessels), and Godliness (divine sparks, trapped inside the shards). Our goal in life, Luria asserts, is to do tikkun olam – world repair – by living according to the mitzvot, the commandments. Each time we do a right action we infuse our holy power into the divine sparks, enabling them to ascend back to their transcendent Source. Our actions of “unification” down here, as we strive to make the world a better and more holy place, actually enable a greater process of re-unification within the godhead. Luria’s account invests much power in us mortals – who identify as tikkun olam those actions which bring about the greatest and most common good, and then actually do them.

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asserts that considering “theology as a part of culture would mean thinking about theology as a part

of some specific, communally shaped way of life, with all the full-bodied and concrete

comprehensiveness that the expression ‘way of life’ conveys.” 46 Given Mordechai Kaplan’s

emphasis on Jewish civilization over Jewish religion, this notion of an enculturated theology

embodied in a communal way of life is natural for Reconstructionists.

Likewise, to echo and amplify a point from Chapter 5’s extended theological exploration, we

see “practical theology”47 as not just an idea, but as an imperative – theology, in a Reconstructionist

understanding, has little inherent meaning beyond how we apply and embody it in our daily lives. In

that sense, this ‘ethnographic’ work is theological: it’s about making real change upon God’s good

Earth, whether or not it’s seen as directly motivated by sacred texts or a sense of mitzvah in its literal

sense of ‘obligation’ (a major line of questioning in my interviews). One interviewee, Andy, offered

that his motivation is eminently humanistic, yet entirely Godly:

We – the Jewish community – are like the epicenter of what needs to change in terms of personal practice. We’re mostly suburban, upper middle class, professional. The synagogue can be a safe space to experiment with other aspects of life: somebody who works at the Department of Energy, and buys compact fluorescent light-bulbs at shul [a Hannukah 2001 project], they’re different because of that. Or someone who helps to write regulations on mercury, who turned in their thermometer [a Sukkot project last year] – it’s real change.”

We do the work of God when we do the work of social action. Some respondents considered

this an obligation (a mitzvah); others felt compelled toward it; still others saw it as a voluntary

undertaking. Many are looking to do more of it; some are satisfied with their current level of

involvement. For some it’s eminently central in their lives and Jewish identities; for others it’s less

so. But in every instance, it’s divine – it’s part of our Earthly mission l’taken olam b’malkhut

Shaddai, “to repair the world, under Divine dominion.”48

46 Theories of Culture: A New Agenda for Theology, op. cit., 67.47 “In recent years a new way of doing theology, called practical theology, has emerged. Practical theology is

tied closely to the lives of congregations and individuals. Rather than moving from faith to life (theory to practice), it moves from life to faith and then back to life (practice to theory to practice). Practical theology begins, therefore, by describing the situation of the congregation and then correlates that situation with the faith and the beliefs of the congregation. From there, practical theology moves back to the life of the congregation to a refocused practice” (Ammerman, et al, op cit, 25). This strikingly mirrors the famous dedication of the Frankfurt Lehrhaus in 1925, where Franz Rosenzweig spoke of Jewish life as no longer starting from an assumed common center, but now with a move from the periphery we all inhabit, back to the center.

48 Quotation from daily liturgy, from the 3rd paragraph of the Aleinu prayer, recited in almost every synagogue near the end of every service. This prayer, originally composed for the Rosh Hashanah liturgy, is some two millennia old; here is one of the first appearances of the notion of tikkun olam, ‘world repair,’ which has in recent

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decades become synonymous with Jewish social action efforts.

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