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Reading The Song of Songs at this moment has been helpful to me, as I begin to turn my attention to, likely, the greatest problem of our time. For years I have found myself drawn to working on the problems plaguing humanity. My rallying cry has been: Housing! Healthcare! Education! Jobs! And, of course, all of these issues are important. But for all my love of nature, all of the early experiences in nature nurtured by my parents, I have not focused my activist and organizing attention on the environment. Even though I spent the High Holy Days in the woods as a child, went on yearly camping trips, attended Jewish summer camp and canoed with my parents through the Boundary Waters and Quetico Provincial Park, as an adult I never took up the cause of the environment.

As I searched for a topic on which to write, some words to say on this holiest night of the year, I thought about the crises rocking our Jewish communities, globally and in Israel, and of the daily threats to democracy in our own land. I thought, maybe it's better to focus on something easier. But meditating on the climate crisis, clearly connected to the other crises I just mentioned, brings into relief how the destruction of our environment is the issue of our day. It intersects with all of the other issues and if not addressed or at least mitigated, puts all other projects of humanity at risk.

I found somewhat of an answer as to why I have so long avoided working against the destruction of our land, water and air when reading Joanna Macy. Macy died at 96 years old in July and was an American environmental activist, author and scholar of Buddhism. She was also an important teacher of one of my teachers and rabbis in rabbinical school. While I had read selected chapters of her books while in rabbinical school, I had not since seriously delved into her thinking. In her book World as Lover, World as Self, she wrote, "Do not be easily duped about the apparent indifference of those around you. What looks like apathy is really fear of suffering (156). Yes, I have been afraid of suffering, afraid of despair when staring down the climate abyss into which we are headed. The reality that we already inhabit."

But Yom Kippur (the original date of this writing) is about facing one’s fears. It is about examining the parts of yourself that you’d rather keep hidden, from everyone else absolutely, and certainly from yourself.

In this spirit of self-reflection, and reflection on the state of our world and our earth, I invite you to imagine with me how we might act as a community in the next year to heal our earth. Every step, every act, has the potential to inspire another step, another act. Every action can move the needle, ever so slightly, in the right direction. I have been inspired by our fellow congregant’s commitment to stewarding the land by taking care of the property on which our synagogue building sits.

From beautiful seasonal flowers planted for us to enjoy, to the rain garden out front, to the removal of invasive species in our woods, to leaving more of our grass unmowed to provide habitat and space for the animals and insects with whom we share this land, we are doing what we can right here. What else can we do? Let us dream, and act, together.