Responding to a Dangerous Impasse on Climate Change

Climate change resulting from the use of fossil fuels poses a well-documented, grave threat to humanity and the ecosystems that support life. But in the United States, a real national response to climate change has been stymied by political inaction, cultural inertia...

When I am called up for an aliyah (the honor of saying blessings over a part of the Sabbath Torah reading), I am called by my Hebrew name: Eliezer ben Yaakov Meir ve-Leah. My family follows the Ashkenazi custom of naming children after deceased relatives and I am named after...

This year, as in previous years at my Passover Seders, I raised my silver goblet, my Kiddush cup with my name engraved on it, for the traditional four cups of wine, and I remembered how I got it. It was a Bar Mitzvah present from a group of old ladies....

One of the most important activities that is part of the traditional preparation for Passover is the elimination of anything that has leaven in it (Hebrew: hametz). Why is this so important? According to the Torah, the Israelites did not eat leavened bread because they did not have time to...

Tu Bishvat, which takes place later this month, has become over the last 40 years the Jewish Earth Day. Whatever its origins, Tu Bishvat is the most likely time that synagogues "do" Jewish environmentalism. And while this is a good thing, it tends to isolate the environment as an issue...

This year Time magazine made The Protester its Person(s) of the Year. Beginning with the Arab Spring, mass protests (sometimes turning into civil war as in Libya and Syria) have spread to Greece, Israel, Spain, the United States, Canada, China and Britain. In each case there were local...

On Nov. 11 I think about my father, war and machine guns. You see, my father knew machine guns. When I was a child I would sit with my father in our den watching "Combat" or "The Gallant Men" and on the screen, in black and white, the U.S. Army...

Simchat Torah is the last celebration of the Jewish High Holiday season. Created in Babylonia during the early middle ages, it is a holiday that marks the end of the yearly cycle of reading the Torah with end of Deuteronomy and then beginning the new cycle of reading with Genesis...

During my 20 years as a pulpit rabbi, I knew that the largest number of my congregants would attend services on Yom Kippur. Many times as I looked out on the Yom Kippur crowds, I would ask myself, "Why are they all here?" There were some obvious answers to this...

The Jewish month of Elul is the last month in the year and marks the beginning of the season of repentance that culminates with Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the Ten Days of Repentance, also known as the High Holidays.

The Jewish concept of repentance is called Teshuvah ("return" in...

There are some teachers who inspire you when you study with them and there are some teachers who inspire you when you read their works. They may be gone but their influence lasts your whole life. One of the most important people to influence my personal theology and spirituality was...

For more than 20 years I've been an educator and an activist in the religious environment movement -- both Jewish and interfaith. In a typical Q&A after a presentation, I'm often asked why I am motivated as a rabbi to speak out on the environment. I've reflected on this question...

The poet Leonard Cohen once wrote:

Out of the Land of Heaven
Down comes the warm Sabbath sun
Into the spice-box of earth.
(From "Out of the Land of Heaven," The Spice-Box of Earth, Bantam Books: New York, 1968, p. 70.)

This poem was written in homage to the painter...

When people quote the Hebrew Bible, they often do so as if it were a single book with a single voice. But the Bible is not a book, it is a library. It has many books, written at different times by different individuals or groups with often very different ideas...

1. God created the universe.

This is the most fundamental concept of Judaism. Its implications are that only God has absolute ownership over Creation (Gen. 1-2, Psalm 24:1, I Chron. 29:10-16). Thus, Judaism's worldview is theocentric not anthropocentric. The environmental implications are that humans must realize that they do not...