Tisha B’av Learning Beyond the
Holocaust: Videos, Articles and Podcasts for
Planet Earth
From Mourning to Comfort: Seven Weeks
of Sustainable Choices to Comfort Planet
Earth
Save the Date: Rabbis Retreat,
2020!
Learn more about Hazon’s Updated Theory
of Change as it relates to our strategic plan
with Rabbis
ראש חודש
אב
תשע״ט
-------- Rosh Chodesh Av 5779, August 2nd,
2019
Chodesh Tov Friends,
As the Jewish lab for Sustainability, and the largest
Jewish environmental organization in the world, Hazon
sees our national network of 1000+ rabbis and spiritual
leaders as a critical force in activating the Jewish
community to engage more in the stewardship and
wellbeing of planet Earth.
We see you as gatekeepers to morality and role-models
for current and future generations. Now more than ever,
it is not only
our youth who look to faith leaders for answers,
but all of us.
It is our hope that the Hazon monthly newsletter for
rabbis and spiritual leaders activates or continues
your own sustainability journey and provides a resource
for you and your community as we respond to the needs
of our generation.
Chodesh Tov,
Rav Isaiah
Isaiah J. Rothstein
Rabbi-in-residence, Hazon
As members of the rabbinical council, we want
to thank you for your ongoing commitments to
Hazon’s work in the Jewish community, and invite
you to feature your work in next months newsletter.
Schedule a call with me to discuss.
The word “Av” comes from the Babloynian word
“Abu,” meaning hostile. The body part
corresponding to this month is the ear and the element most
related to this month is fire.
Fire and hostility because the month of Av is a time which
symbolizes the destruction of both temples by fire and
hostility, in addition to Tu’ B’av, the holiday
of love and love being associated with fire (hopefully no
hostility) – not to mention, fire and hostility
because it was the hottest July on record.
Shabbat Hazon and Tisha B'av:
The rabbis refer to the Shabbat before Tisha B’av as
Shabbat Hazon (Shabbat of vision). The main reason is
because the Haftarah we read is titles “Hazon
Yeshayahu,” the vision of Isaiah.
By observing the Shabbat before Tisha B’av as Shabbat
Hazon, we are providing a means to help ourselves to slow
down and reflect on what the current reality of our people
and planet are. Through this we have the ability to produce
our individual and communal hazon (vision).
Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik points out, Tisha B’Av
itself is a fast of mourning and not of repentance. We
don’t try to fix anything on Tisha B’av, but to
experience the magnitude of the catastrophe that befell
us.
As we create this vision for our communities, let yourself
simply sit in the moment of mourning, let us examine our
ways at it relates to the impending
breakdown of food systems throughout the
country.
As Rabbi Professor Richard H. Schwartz
wrote in his article Tisha B’av and the
Environmental Crisis:
“In view of the many threats to humanity today, I
hope that Jews will enhance their commemoration of the
solemn but spiritually meaningful holiday of Tisha
b’Av by making it a time to begin striving even
harder to live up to Judaism’s highest moral values
and teachings. One important way to do this is by applying
Jewish values in efforts to shift our precious, but
imperiled, planet onto a more sustainable
path.”
So as you slow down and listen to your own heart
during this Shabbat Hazon and Tisha B’av, will you
also consider how we as a Jewish community can address the
environmental crisis before us?
Tisha B'av Resources Beyond the
Holocaust: Videos, Articles, and Podcasts for
Planet Earth
From Mourning to
Comfort: 7 Weeks of Sustainable Choices to
Comfort Planet Earth
Shiva D'Nechemta, The Seven Weeks of
Comfort:
There are exactly seven weeks from Tisha
B’av to Rosh Hashanah, also known as the Seven
weeks of Comfort or Shiva D’nechemta. One
reason for this is because the Haftarah we read
directly after Tisha B’av and all those
after are from the second half of the book of Isaiah,
containing messages of comfort, hope, redemption, and
justice. Just like the 49 days of the Omer, we have an
opportunity to engage in a teshuva process guided
by love (Teshuva M’ahava) before the coming
months of the high and holy days.
As we begin the new year together, let us consider 49
actions – for the seven weeks of comfort – for
planet earth, mending a broken environmental ecosystem and
a broken heart. Let us not only enter into a
people-teshuva process, but an
environmental-teshuva process. As the
need for change
grows louder, let us not wait for another thing to
mourn.
Join us in Seven Weeks of Sustainable Choices
from Hazon, the Jewish Lab for
Sustainability.
Put a Green Kiddush on your calendar.
Don’t know how? Check out Hazon’s
Resource on Green Kiddush
here! Contact:
isaiah.rothstein@hazon.org.
Climate Change High Holiday Sermons.
Incorporate environmental sustainability into
your sermons for the High Holidays using the
Jewish Climate Action Network’s
(JCAN) High Holiday Climate Packet.
Contact:
info@JCAN-NYC.org.
Food Waste Weekend. Choose One Sermon
(any day of the year) and turn it into a food
waste/food systems at Ampleharvest.org’s
Food Waste Weekend. Contact:
gary@ampleharvest.org.
Stage a walk-out for the
Global Climate Strike, September 20-27. Let
us show all faith groups that the Jewish
community is on the right side of history as it
relates to climate change.
Save the Date:Hazon Rabbis' Retreat | May 15-18,
2020
The
Hazon Rabbis' Retreat is not another conference,
training, or convention. It is intended to be a retreat
to really rest, rejuvenate, make new connections
– inner and outer – and renew. We'll be
starting with a clergy-family Shabbat experience, as we
believe that families of spiritual leaders need a place
to retreat as well. After our Shabbat experience and a
rocking musical havdallah and Saturday night event,
Sunday and Monday will be exclusively for rabbis and
spiritual leaders in an effort to strengthen the bond
of clergy and consider how we might lift up the
generation.
We welcome all rabbis and spiritual leaders (rabbis,
cantors, kohanot, ritual leaders, chaplains, and
students) to join us for an unforgettable experience with
new and old friends at the home of Hazon, Isabella
Freedman Jewish Retreat Center. Learn more
below.
We are in a global environmental crisis. Jewish tradition
compels us to respond.
The word Hazon means “vision.” Our vision is of
a vibrant healthy Jewish community, in which to be
Jewish is necessarily to help create a more sustainable
world for all.
Together we are building a national Jewish movement that
strengthens Jewish life and contributes to a more
environmentally sustainable world for all.
Learn more about Hazon’s (updated)
Theory of Change as it relates to our strategic plan
with rabbis and spiritual leaders.
Want to get more involved in
Hazon's work with rabbis and spiritual
leaders?
Hazon is building a movement of rabbis and
spiritual leaders that strengthen Jewish life &
contribute to a more environmentally sustainable
world for all and we want you to be a part of
it.
Contact Hazon rabbi-in-residence, Isaiah Rothstein
at isaiah.rothstein@hazon.org or set up a 30 minute
call using
his online calendar.
As the Jewish lab for sustainability, Hazon is
building a movement that strengthens Jewish life and
contributes to a more environmentally sustainable world
for all.
Hazon
25 Broadway | Suite 1700 | New York, NY 10004 |
212.644.2332 | info@hazon.org
Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat
Center
116 Johnson Road, Falls Village, CT 06031 |
860.824.5991 | registrar@hazon.org